Department for Transport

Royal Mail: Road Traffic Control

Mr Andrew Tyrie: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government has undertaken work to establish (a) which exemptions from Traffic Management Orders local authorities offer exclusively to Royal Mail and (b) the value in foregone revenue of those exemptions.

Andrew Jones: No such work has been undertaken by the Government. Local authorities are responsible for deciding whether or not to exempt certain vehicles such as Royal Mail vehicles from local parking controls with powers available to them in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, and any related data would be held by them.

Air Space

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to issue a consultation on modernising UK airspace.

Mr John Hayes: We are currently reviewing existing airspace policies and expect to consult early next year.

High Speed 2 Railway Line

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much steel is expected to be used in the High Speed 2 project; how much of that steel is expected to be British steel; what the value of that steel is expected to be; and how much of that steel has been ordered.

Andrew Jones: HS2 Ltd has calculated that Phase One of HS2 will require some 1.3 million tonnes (mt) of steel, principally delivered over the period 2020-2025. Phase Two is calculated to require a further 0.73 mt, mainly during the second half of the 2020s. This makes a total of 2.03 mt, over approximately 10 years. Included in the total are estimates of building components in stations, civil engineering structures such as bridges, viaducts, tunnels and walls, and also steel in rolling stock and railway track (rail, sleepers and slab track). It is too early for HS2 Ltd to be able to provide an indicative figure for the value of steel required. HS2 Ltd will not buy any steel directly. As with the rest of our construction materials, this will be procured by the supply chain. HS2 won’t need steel at bulk until after construction begins in 2017. HS2 provides an excellent opportunity for British businesses with 25,000 jobs created during construction and 3,000 when up and running. HS2 Ltd has hosted a number of events across the UK to make sure British firms are well-placed to compete for opportunities offered by HS2.

Aviation: Noise

George Kerevan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of establishing an Independent Aviation Noise Authority.

Mr John Hayes: The government is considering recommendations put forward by the Airports Commission for an independent aviation noise body and will consult on these matters shortly.

London Airports: Night Flying

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to issue a consultation on night noise and night flying restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted Airports.

Mr John Hayes: The Government plans to issue a consultation shortly on its proposals on the current night flight restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted which expire in October 2017.

High Speed 2 Railway Line

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the total cost of the High Speed 2 project; and if he will make a statement.

Andrew Jones: Spending Review 2015 announced an updated long-term funding envelope for delivering the HS2 project of £55.7bn (in 2015 prices), including rolling stock. The project is on time and on budget. HS2 Ltd is committed to managing the cost of HS2 and ensuring maximum value for the taxpayer. The Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd will continue to work with HM Treasury and Infrastructure UK to ensure that the costs of HS2 continue to be kept under control.

Railways: Cardiff

Craig Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to improve rail links with Cardiff.

Paul Maynard: The Government remains absolutely committed to delivering the benefits to passengers of improved services while ensuring we get maximum value for the taxpayer.We are making good progress on work to electri‎fy the Great Western main line to Cardiff; and passengers will be able to look forward to improved journeys with more seats when the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) trains come into service.

Motor Vehicles: Noise

Sir Hugo Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to reduce noise emissions from (a) motorcycles, (b) cars and (c) commercial vehicles; and what targets he has set to reduce each such type of noise emission.

Andrew Jones: Vehicle noise emissions requirements are harmonized at EU level. Officials from the Department for Transport are actively involved in developing new EU regulations to reduce noise emissions from motorcycles, cars, and commercial vehicles. More stringent limits for cars and commercial vehicles came into force in July 2016 with further reductions scheduled for 2020 and 2024. The EU Commission are currently studying motorcycle noise. They are obliged to introduce new, more stringent requirements for motorcycles registered after 1 January 2021. The limit values are not yet set, but will be developed together with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, in order to obtain wider harmonisation. This work may involve development of a new test procedure.

Unmanned Air Vehicles

Lucy Powell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 27 May 2016 to Question 38311, what the outcome was of the Government's consultation on measures to regulate the use of drones.

Mr John Hayes: Government believes we currently have a robust framework that balances penalties with commercial permissions. However, we recognise that this framework needs to keep pace with the emerging market. We continue to develop proposals which we will put forward in the near future.

A12

Sir Simon Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the timetable is for work to commence on uprating the A12 to a three lane road from (a) the M25 to Margaretting and (b) Boreham Interchange to Colchester; and if he will make a statement.

Mr John Hayes: The A12 from the M25 (Junction 11) to Chelmsford (Junction 15) widening scheme - M25 to Margaretting - is to be developed by Highways England for the next Road Period (2020 - 2025). Construction of the A12 Chelmsford (Junction 19) to the A120 (Junction 25) widening scheme from Boreham Interchange to Colchester is expected to commence before March 2020.

Govia Thameslink Railway

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the (a) actual and (b) default cancellation level for the southern section of the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise is.

Paul Maynard: Govia Thameslink Railway’s benchmarks are based on the entire franchise, not each component business group. There are no separate benchmarks for Southern or the southern section of the franchise.

Govia Thameslink Railway

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what meetings Ministers of his Department have had with representatives of Govia Thameslink Railway since January 2016; and what the dates of those meetings were.

Paul Maynard: Ministers meet regularly with representatives of Govia Thameslink Railway. Details of Ministerial meetings are published in the Department’s Quarterly Transparency Returns, which are made publicly available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-ministerial-and-special-advisers-gifts-hospitality-travel-and-meetings-april-to-june-2016.

Govia Thameslink Railway

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether any conflicts of interests were declared to the Department by any person or organisation involved in assessing, awarding and overseeing the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise.

Paul Maynard: All individuals engaged by the Department in assessing the bids, awarding the contract and overseeing the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern Franchise signed a franchise specific conflict of interest and confidentiality form; or were covered by a memorandum of understanding between their employer and the Department; or were covered by a contractual provision or professional duty to report conflict of interests. Two individuals reported minor perceived conflicts of interests, that the Department reviewed and was comfortable with. There was a conflict of interest relating to the Department’s Technical Advisor, Atkins and one of the losing bidders. The Department sought legal advice about managing this matter and mitigations were put in place.

Govia Thameslink Railway

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trains Govia Thameslink Railway cancelled between the end of April and late July 2016; and what proportion of those cancellations were due to official industrial action.

Paul Maynard: Govia Thameslink Railway have submitted a force majeure claim for official and unofficial industrial action undertaken by drivers and conductors on Southern services. At present we cannot provide this information as we are currently finishing our assessment of the claim for the first three railway periods since the action started.

Railways: Expenditure

Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, (a) how much of and (b) on what the £20 million rail fund for new stations announced on 1 September 2016 has been spent.

Paul Maynard: The second round of the New Stations Fund was launched on 26 August 2016. The deadline for bidders for this round of up to £20 million funding is 25 November 2016. Applications for funding have been invited from industry and local authority promoters and will be evaluated independently against the qualifying and assessment criteria. We hope to announce the successful projects by April 2017 and work will need to be completed by 31 March 2020.

Railways: Staff

Kelvin Hopkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the planning by train operating companies to ensure availability of conductors or guards on train services to mitigate against delays or cancellations of train services.

Paul Maynard: The Department monitors the effective delivery of train services by operators against the obligations in their franchise agreements, including those in relation to delays and cancellations. However, how operators plan to meet those obligations is an operational matter for them, and the Department does not specifically assess their plans for ensuring the availability of traincrew. I would note however that Driver Controlled Operation removes the frustration of trains being delayed or cancelled as a result of no guard being available because, for example, they have been delayed on another service.

Railways: Kingston upon Hull

Karl Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the projected difference in journey times between London and Hull of (a) bi-modal trains and (b) full electrification of the line.

Paul Maynard: There is no difference in projected journey times of the two trains types between Hull and London.

Department for Communities and Local Government

Regeneration: Coastal Areas

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what support his Department makes available for renewal for coastal towns with a significant tourism industry.

Andrew Percy: We have provided £1.18 million to help establish 118 Coastal Community Teams along the English coast to empower local communities to drive forward renewal in their coastal towns. Every Team has produced an Economic Plan setting out both the short term and longer term priorities to promote jobs, tourism and economic growth. I will shortly be announcing more Coastal Community Teams.We are also supporting our coastal towns to create jobs and investment. Under the Coastal Communities Fund the government has invested £125 million in over 200 projects across the UK to date, including £92 million which was invested in England. Over 60% of the grant awards by number and value have supported tourism and hospitality projects in coastal towns. We have identified a further £90 million to support more Coastal Community Fund projects.

Brexit

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what role the Government plans that local government will play in the negotiations on the UK leaving the EU.

Mr Marcus Jones: The Secretary of State regularly meets with local government and listens to their views on the UK vote to leave the EU. Local government is engaged with government and is contributing to its work to inform future negotiations with the EU.The UK’s decision to leave the EU is a chance for us to develop opportunities for local communities across England, and local government has a key role in ensuring that we are able to make the most of this opportunity.

Local Government Finance

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, by which formula the £150 million transition grant was allocated to local authorities; and what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of that grant in achieving its aims.

Mr Marcus Jones: My department has published an explanatory note on the method of allocation of the Transition Grant for 2016/17. A copy has been placed in the library of both Houses and it available to view at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/510870/Explanatory_note_on_the_allocation_of_the_Transition_Grant.pdf

Refugees: Syria

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which local authorities have agreed to be part of the Syrian Resettlement Programme.

Mr Marcus Jones: Under the scheme, local authorities sign up to accept refugees on a voluntary basis. The last set of statistics, published on 25 August 2016 showed that between the start of October 2015 and the end of June 2016, 2,646 people were resettled under the scheme across 118 different local authorities. The quarterly migration statistics set out how many people have been resettled in each authority under the scheme. The resettlement programme has sufficient pledges of places from local authorities across the UK to resettle 20,000 vulnerable Syrians and will continue to work closely with them to turn those pledges into places.

Local Government Finance

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which local authorities (a) have and (b) have not made applications for a multi-year financial settlement.

Mr Marcus Jones: 344 councils accepted the multi-year settlement offer and published efficiency plans by 14 October. We will publish details of which councils they were, and the 10 councils that chose not to apply, at the provisional local government finance settlement shortly.

Mayors

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his Department's policy is on establishing new city region mayors after May 2017.

Andrew Percy: Devolution Deals are, and will remain, a key part of our plan to support growth up and down the country as we build an economy that works for everyone. To date, the government has adopted a bottom-up and iterative approach to agreeing devolution – through a “deal-making” mechanism. This process allows local areas to develop devolution proposals through the basis of local consent and dialogue.

Council Housing: Insulation

Royston Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what information local authorities are required to hold on tenants of their properties who receive assistance under the cavity insulation guarantee scheme.

Gavin Barwell: There is no requirement for local authorities to hold information on their tenants who receive assistance under the cavity insulation guarantee scheme.

Local Government Finance

Lilian Greenwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether the methodology and models to be used by his Department to calculate the transitional grant funding distribution for 2017-18 are the same as those used to calculate the 2016-17 transitional grant funding distribution.

Mr Marcus Jones: My department has published an explanatory note on the method of allocation of the Transition Grant for 2016/17. A copy has been placed in the library of both Houses and is available to view at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/510870/Explanatory_note_on_the_allocation_of_the_Transition_Grant.pdf. Transition Grant allocations for 2017/18 have been calculated using the same methodology and are part of the four year funding settlement offer that has been accepted by 97% of councils.

Local Government Finance

Lilian Greenwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the final local government finance settlement 2016-17, published on 8 February 2016, if he will release the spreadsheet used as a calculation model and the assumptions used to determine the allocation to each individual authority of the 2016-17 transitional grant.

Mr Marcus Jones: The Secretary of State has published an explanatory note setting out the method of calculation of the Transition Grant. A copy has been placed in the library of both Houses and it available to view at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/510870/Explanatory_note_on_the_allocation_of_the_Transition_Grant.pdfIndividual authority allocations were published on 8 February as part of the Core Spending Power: Supporting Information tables: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-spending-power-final-local-government-finance-settlement-2016-to-2017

Housing: West Sussex

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the transport, road, waste and energy infrastructure in (a) West Sussex and (b) Mid Sussex constituency for current and projected demand for housing; and if he will review the infrastructure in (i) West Sussex and (ii) Mid Sussex constituency in the light of current and projected demand for housing.

Gavin Barwell: In producing their Local Plan, an authority should set out their strategic priorities to deliver housing need and infrastructure in their area. These plans must be examined by an independent Inspector, appointed by the Secretary of State, who will consider the adequacy of infrastructure to support future development (based on the Council’s evidence) as part of a wider consideration into the soundness of the Plan. All the local planning authorities within West Sussex have either got an adopted Local Plan which has been found sound at examination, or a plan which is currently being examined, such as Mid Sussex.The Local Growth Fund has made over £7 billion available to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) to spend on local priority projects which unlock housing and create infrastructure to generate economic growth. A further round of Growth Deal funding worth up to £1.8 billion is available to LEPs. The results will be announced towards the end of the year.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Company Cars: Taxation

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what representations he has received from the car industry on the proposals to increase taxation on company car drivers contained in the HM Revenue and Customs consultation on salary sacrifice for the provision of benefits in kind.

Mr Nick Hurd: The Government is in close contact with the automotive sector on a range of issues, however we do not provide a running commentary on our discussions with individual companies.Ministerial meetings with external organisations are published quarterly on the Gov.uk website at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bis-quarterly-publications-april-to-june-2012

Research: EU Grants and Loans

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department plans to put in place to ensure that academic collaboration between UK and EU research institutions continues after the UK has left the EU; and if he will make a statement.

Joseph Johnson: The UK will maintain its status as a global centre for research and innovation. In last year’s Spending Review the Government committed to protecting science resource funding in real terms from its 2015 level of £4.7 billion a year for the rest of the parliament, as well as committing to invest in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale – £6.9 billion over the period 2015-2021.While the UK remains a member of the EU, funding and collaboration arrangements continue unchanged. Researchers can continue to bid for competitive EU research funding such as Horizon 2020 while we remain a member of the EU. The Government will work with the Commission to ensure payment when funds are awarded. The Treasury will underwrite the payment of such awards, even when specific projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU. This decision gives British participants and their EU partners the assurance and certainty needed to plan ahead for collaborative projects that can run over many years.Access to apply to Horizon 2020 and subsequent funding programmes after we leave the EU will be a matter for the negotiations that will follow the triggering of Article 50.

Energy: Competition

Sarah Champion: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect on competitive advantage for companies in the energy-intensive industry sector of differences in eligibility thresholds for access to relief; and if he will meet representatives of that sector to discuss those differences in thresholds.

Mr Nick Hurd: The Government has targeted its relief at the most electricity intensive industries operating in international markets, in line with the European Commission’s published Aid guidelines.We recognise that in setting an eligibility threshold, there will be some companies that will not receive the relief while their direct competitors do. We have sought to address this by notifying the European Commission that we intend to provide relief to direct competitors who do not pass the eligibility threshold. We have had a number of discussions with the Commission on this proposal, although this has not been approved to date. We are keen to resolve how best to address the issues faced by direct competitors. We are therefore investigating options that may be available to us within the scope of EU State Aid guidelines.BEIS officials are happy to meet with representatives to discuss this matter in further detail.

Research: EU Grants and Loans

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2016 to Question 49430, what guidance his Department is providing to UK-based research institutions on research proposals to be submitted to Horizon 2010 after the UK has left the EU; and if he will make a statement.

Joseph Johnson: As set out in my answer to Question 49430, access to apply for Horizon 2020 after we leave the EU will be a matter for the negotiations that will follow the triggering of Article 50.UK-based researchers can continue to apply for competitive EU research funding through the Horizon 2020 programme while we remain a member of the EU. We will work with the European Commission to ensure payment when funds are awarded. The Treasury will underwrite the payment for such awards, even when specific projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU. Access to apply for Horizon 2020 after we leave the EU will be a matter for the negotiations that will follow the triggering of Article 50.

Service Industries and Manufacturing Industries

Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the sectoral balance of business and industry between service and manufacturing; and what assessment he has made of whether that balance should change after the UK leaves the EU.

Mr Nick Hurd: Holding answer received on 14 November 2016



The UK economy comprises 10% manufacturing, 80% services and 10% other industries, including agriculture and utilities. The UK is the ninth largest manufacturing nation in the world and has the fifth largest services sector. We will continue to engage with UK manufacturing and services sectors to understand their priorities in shaping a successful Brexit and an industrial strategy that is effective in supporting competitiveness.

Construction: Finance

Alan Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of progress on the Wolstenholme review of cash retentions in the construction industry; when he expects that review to be completed; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Nick Hurd: Holding answer received on 17 November 2016



The review of cash retentions forms part of the Construction Leadership Council’s supply chain and business model work stream. The review is being underpinned by independent research in order to generate quantitative data which can be used to develop policy options. It remains the Government’s intention to publish both the research and the consultation papers later this year.

Death: Weather

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much his Department has spent to limit excess winter deaths in each of the last five years.

Jesse Norman: Holding answer received on 18 November 2016



The Department does not report specifically on spending against this objective. However, Government recognises the link between living in a cold home and ill-health, and has subsequently invested heavily in improving the energy efficiency of households vulnerable to the effects of the cold, as well as financial payments to help with the affordability of energy bills. Some of these schemes target a range of households, and are not limited to those particularly vulnerable to the effects of cold homes. My noble Friend the Minister of State for Energy and Intellectual Property has asked for the relevant expenditure to be separated out; she will write to the hon. Member with that information and a copy of the letter will be placed in the Libraries of the House.

Graduates: North West

Graham Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage graduates from North West universities to remain in the North West after graduation and (b) attract graduates from across the country to the North West.

Margot James: Integrating graduate skills into the local economy is key to expanding a region’s high skills economy. Graduates are relatively well represented in the North West compared to most other English regions. The most recent data (2014/15) indicates that approximately 10% (20,500) of first class degree graduates in the UK were employed within the region in the first six months after leaving university. Nearly 75% (14,200) of those employed studied at a Higher Education provider within the region.Addressing the skills gap is key to Government’s plans to building a powerhouse in the North and an economy that works for all. We will continue to work with stakeholders to make the North a great place to live and work.

Cooperatives

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support his Department makes available for the establishment of new cooperatives in the UK.

Margot James: The Department supports the establishment of all businesses including cooperatives. Support for people wanting to start or grow their business is available from our Business Support Helpline, while 39 growth hubs in England bring together local business support so that local people can access it easily. British Business Bank programmes are improving access to finance, including Start-Up Loans which provide start up finance and business advice.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Sick Leave

Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in his Department and its predecessor in each of the last three years.

Margot James: The total number of working days lost due mental illness in each of the last 3 years for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s predecessors (the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department of Business, Industry and Strategy) are:PeriodDays LostJuly to June 2013/143531July to June 2014/153199July to June 2015/163674 Figures include only core departments with the 2013/14 figures including what is now the Oil and Gas Authority which became an Agency from 2014/15 and is excluded thereafter.

Research: EU Grants and Loans

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much he plans for his Department to contribute towards the Economic and Social Research Council grant programme, UK in a Changing Europe.

Joseph Johnson: The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has allocated £366m to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to spend on excellent research in the social sciences between April 2016 and March 2018. All Research Councils abide by the Haldane principle; how they spend their allocated funding is decided independently by ESRC’s council. The full programme expenditure for The UK in a Changing Europe currently stands at £4.95m; the programme began in 2014 and is scheduled to continue until December 2017.

Energy: Imports

Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 28 October 2016 to Question 50888, what tariff rates on electricity which reaches the UK through interconnectors from the continent will remain similarly unaffected by the UK leaving the EU.

Jesse Norman: The bound EU tariff rate on imports of electricity is zero. As with imports of other forms of energy, the decision on whether electricity imported into the UK should be subject to tariffs once the UK has left the EU will be for the UK alone to make. And as with other energy imports, reasons of economic competitiveness, energy security and the UK’s support for an open trade regime make it unlikely that the Government would wish to impose tariffs on electricity reaching the UK from other parts of Europe.

Offshore Industry: North Sea

Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential costs and benefits to customers, workers and the public purse of a UK company purchasing Shell's North Sea assets.

Jesse Norman: No such assessment has been made. Any potential sale of Shell’s North Sea assets is a commercial matter for the company rather than Her Majesty’s Government.

Electricity Generation

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a Market Stability Mechanism Contract for Difference.

Jesse Norman: A number of stakeholders have suggested the concept of a market-stabilising Contract for Difference for Pot 1 technologies. Officials are currently assessing these suggestions, and Ministers have therefore not yet made any decisions regarding the proposed options.

Electricity Generation

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential effect of the Ofgem review of Embedded Benefit grid charges on energy intensive industries and the pace of roll-out of energy storage technologies in the UK.

Mr Nick Hurd: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Energy: Technology

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when the Government plans to publish the outcome of its call for evidence on the energy technology list.

Jesse Norman: The Department is currently analysing the responses to the Energy Technology List Call for Evidence. A decision on next steps will be taken in due course.

Energy: Technology

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of introducing enhanced capital allowances on the development of energy storage and other low carbon technologies.

Jesse Norman: The Carbon Trust, which delivers the Energy Technology List on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, are currently conducting an initial study to consider whether there is a cost-effective case for incorporating Electrical Energy Storage Technology into the Energy Technology List. The study has sought from the outset to engage with stakeholders from across the industry, including those in Scotland, and we look forward to receiving the study’s findings in due course.

Renewable Energy

Angus Brendan MacNeil: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment the Government has made of progress towards its 2020 renewable target in the (a) heat and (b) transport sectors.

Jesse Norman: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Procurement

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many times his Department has (a) terminated a contract, (b) imposed a penalty and (c) denied permission for a company to tender on the grounds of grave professional misconduct since November 2015.

Margot James: The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (including the former Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Energy and Climate Change) has not terminated a contract, imposed a penalty or denied permission for any company to tender on the grounds of grave professional misconduct since November 2015.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: ICT

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many of his Department's digital and IT projects are (a) under review and (b) subject to probable cancellation.

Margot James: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Social Networking

Andy Slaughter: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department is monitoring content that is publicly available on social networking sites using overt monitoring techniques.

Margot James: The Department engages and makes use of social media to understand public and stakeholder sentiment and to respond where appropriate. The information gathered through monitoring enables the department to develop policy, provide real-time insights so we can respond quickly to users and anticipate potential issues. The department also undertakes systematic social media monitoring to evaluate campaigns and programmes of work.

Post Offices: Franchises

Gill Furniss: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many of the Crown post offices which were franchised by the Post Office in 2014 and 2015 are in (a) urban areas of deprivation, (b) urban areas and (c) rural areas.

Gill Furniss: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which Crown post offices are in (a) urban areas of deprivation, (b) urban areas and (c) rural areas.

Gill Furniss: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many former Crown post office premises the Post Office has sold since 2014 after franchising a Crown office; and for how much such premises have been sold.

Margot James: The operation and franchising of its Crown post offices is the responsibility of Post Office Limited. I have asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the Hon Member on this matter and provide the information requested. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

Post Offices

Gill Furniss: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how government grants for the Post Office since January 2011, other than Network Subsidy Payments, have been spent; and what conditions were placed on the use of such grants by the Post Office.

Gill Furniss: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much public funding the Post Office has received since January 2011 through government grants for investment in the network; and how much of that funding has been spent on postmasters' compensation.

Margot James: From the period January 2011 to-date the Government has provided Post Office Limited with £1.835 billion in network subsidy and other payments to maintain, modernise and protect a network of at least 11,500 post offices across the country. Government has not provided Post Office Limited with any grants beyond the network subsidy payments. The arrangements for postmaster compensation are the operational responsibility of Post Office Limited. I have asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to the Hon Member on this matter and provide the information requested. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

Energy: Meters

Mr Christopher Chope: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant the Answer of 14 November 2016 to Question 52126, what the timetable is for the completion of work to make SMETS1 meters interoperable.

Jesse Norman: The Data and Communications Company (DCC) is consulting on options for moving SMETS1 meters into the new national smart metering data and communications infrastructure to make them interoperable between energy suppliers when customers switch supplier (https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/media/409998/iepfr_consultation_-_published.pdf). Following consultation, the DCC will submit a report on enrolment options to the Government in Spring 2017. The timetable for completion of the DCC’s work on interoperability is dependent on the outcome of the consultation. In advance of moving SMETS1 meters into the DCC, industry is separately developing interim solutions that could enable consumers with SMETS1 meters to retain their smart services upon switching supplier. Those solutions are scheduled to begin testing from 2017.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Burma: Press Freedom

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports he has received on the sacking of the journalist Fiona MacGregor from the Myanmar Times newspaper; and whether he has raised the issue of media freedom with the government of Myanmar.

Alok Sharma: We are aware of Fiona MacGregor's case and the British Embassy in Rangoon has been in touch with her. While Burma has made progress on freedom of the expression since 2012, we continue to have concerns. The outdated legal framework continues to lead to instances of draconian penalties being handed down to journalists. While private media are able to operate, and in general there is editorial freedom, there are also instances of intimidation. The UK has been a leading advocate for media rights in Burma and will continue to press for rights of expression that are fully in line with international norms.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Pay

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what proportion of women are employed by his Department on a non-London pay structure in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.

Sir Alan Duncan: ​The Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not have staff based in the UK on a non-London pay structure.

Turkey: British Nationals Abroad

Martyn Day: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to offer support to UK nationals who have been forced to leave their employment in Turkey in light of the political situation in that country.

Sir Alan Duncan: ​We provide consular support to British nationals in difficulty in Turkey, where appropriate. The assistance available to British nationals in Turkey is explained in our publication 'Support for British nationals abroad: A Guide'. We have also updated our travel advice for Turkey following restrictions imposed by the current state of emergency in Turkey that may affect British nationals, which includes advice to carry passports and a copy of visa or residence permit at all times.

Bahrain: Technical Assistance

Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions the Government has had with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the provision of technical assistance to Bahrain since 2012.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: Officials at the UK Mission in Geneva hold regular discussions with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the provision of UN technical assistance to Bahrain and encourage a continued dialogue between them about co-operation on human rights issues. I encouraged further cooperation on 10 November with senior officials during a visit to Bahrain.The UK Government continues to work closely with the Government of Bahrain to provide reform assistance focused on strengthening human rights and the rule of law. The UK Government believes that only by working with Bahrain are we able to assist in bringing about the changes necessary in the country. While it will take time to see the full results of much of this work, the UK is having a direct impact on areas of concern.

Nuclear Disarmament: UN Resolutions

Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reasons the UK Government voted against UN Resolution L41 which mandated the start of negotiations to ban nuclear weapons in 2017.

Sir Alan Duncan: Our joint Explanation of Vote with the US and France sets out our views on the resolution. The text can be found here https://www.delegfrance-cd-geneve.org/71st-UNGA-Explanations-of-vote-ion-behalf-of-the-P3-10-27-2016 on the Permanent representation of France website.

Abdulwahab Hussain

Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the government of Bahrain on the denial of medical treatment for detainee Husain Abdulwanhab at Dry Dock Detention Centre.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: The UK Government, through its Embassy in Bahrain, take an active interest in cases such as that for Husain Abdulwanhab and where we have concerns we raise them with the Government of Bahrain at an appropriate level.The Ministry of Interior Ombudsman has responsibility for investigating allegations of mistreatment in detention. We encourage all those with concerns about their treatment in detention to report these directly to the Ombudsman, and we encourage the Ombudsman to carry out thorough investigations into any such allegations. We also continue to encourage the Government of Bahrain to deliver on its international and domestic human rights commitments.

Guyana: Venezuela

Mr David Lammy: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations the Government has made to the governments of Guyana and Venezuela on the border dispute between those countries.

Sir Alan Duncan: ​The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my noble Friend, the Rt Hon. Baroness Anelay of St Johns met both the President and Foreign Minister of Guyana in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September. At those meetings she made clear that the British Government's position on the border controversy between Venezuela and Guyana has not changed. The Minister reaffirmed our belief that the 1899 Arbitral Award, to which we were a party, definitively settled the border but that this is a bilateral issue to be resolved between the two countries. The Minister also highlighted that both countries are signatories to the Geneva Agreement of 1966 which provides a range of mechanisms for dealing with this issue. The British High Commissioner in Guyana has also discussed the border controversy on several occasions with the Government of Guyana as have officials from our Embassy in Venezuela with Venezuelan officials.

Colombia: Homicide

Robert Flello: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to the Colombian authorities regarding the murder of Jhon Jairo Rodriguez, Cecilia Culcue de Noscue, Evaristo Dagua Troches and Victor Andres Florez in the Cauca region of Colombia in 2016.

Sir Alan Duncan: The UK and Colombia continue to work closely together to strengthen human rights. The Prime Minister raised human rights concerns on 2 November with President Juan Manuel Santos, during his recent state visit to the UK. They discussed reports of increased attacks against human rights defenders, including trade unionists.We are aware of the recent murder of Jhon Jairo Rodriguez, Cecilia Culcue de Noscue, Evaristo Dagua Troches and Victor Andres Florez in the Cauca region of Colombia. During a regional trip to Cauca later this year, British Embassy officials will meet FENSUAGRO union members to hear first-hand information on the human rights situation in the region. Our Embassy in Bogota also participates in the local European Union Human Rights Working Group. On 19 September the Working Group wrote to the Colombian Attorney General regarding specific cases of trade unionists, including FENSUAGRO members.

Embassies: St Andrew's Day

Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what events his Department has planned for UK embassies or consulates to celebrate St Andrew's Day in order to promote Scotland and Scottish interests abroad.

Sir Alan Duncan: Overseas Posts will use the opportunity of St Andrew's Day to promote Scotland through a week of media and digital activities, targeted at supporting Scottish businesses and demonstrating Scotland's contribution to our international effort. We are cooperating with colleagues from the Scotland Office, DFID, MOD, DIT and the Scottish Government.As is standard practice, our overseas Posts will be asked to fly Scotland's flag on 30 November to mark St Andrew's Day.

Guyana: Venezuela

Mr David Lammy: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if the Government will make representations to the UN Secretary-General on using his good offices to (a) work towards a permanent solution to the land dispute between Guyana and Venezuela and (b) find a mutually agreeable juridical settlement of that dispute.

Sir Alan Duncan: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, through our Mission to the United Nations in New York, has previously raised the border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela with the UN Secretary-General's office. We did so to seek current UN thinking on next steps and to express our support for the Secretary-General's ongoing efforts. We have been clear that the British Government believes the 1899 Arbitral Award, to which we were a party, definitively settled the border. This is a bilateral issue to be resolved between both countries. We look forward to a successful resolution of the matter.

Syria: Politics and Government

Tom Elliott: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the cohesiveness and unity of purpose of the various groups within the Syrian opposition.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: ​The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) brings together the broadest range of Syrian opposition groups so far, including representatives of armed groups on the ground, with the purpose of negotiating a peaceful transition in Syria. In September the HNC set out a detailed vision for this political transition, to end the conflict. We welcomed the moderate, inclusive and pragmatic nature of this initiative and consider it a valuable contribution to the political process. The HNC includes a wide range of groupings of different political perspectives as well as regional, ethnic and confessional backgrounds. Their coming together to set out a shared vision for transition was a significant moment.Since September the opposition has come under further pressure in Syria, not least because of the brutal offensive by the regime and its backers against east Aleppo, where up to 275,000 people have been cut off from all aid supplies for four months, and against other besieged areas. The UK continues to believe that the only long-term resolution to the Syrian conflict is a sustainable political settlement based on transition away from the rule of Bashar al-Asad. The moderate opposition have shown that they are ready and prepared to discuss this. The regime and its backers must now end their destructive military approach and return to the negotiating table.

Russia: Armed Forces

Tom Elliott: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterparts in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the build-up of Russian forces on Russia's southern and western frontiers.

Sir Alan Duncan: Acting in concert with NATO and EU partners, the UK is taking action through the Enhanced Forward Presence (helping to provide security for all three Baltic states), regular communications activities and continued dialogue.

Foreign Relations

Dr Paul Monaghan: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the UK's decision to leave the EU on UK bilateral relations with (a) other EU and (b) non-EU countries.

Sir Alan Duncan: As the UK leaves the European Union, the Government intends to strengthen its bilateral relationships with countries in Europe and around the world.

Kashmir: Armed Forces

Robert Flello: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterpart in India on the use of pellet ammunition by Indian troops in Kashmir.

Alok Sharma: Holding answer received on 18 November 2016



I have discussed the use of pellet guns and alternative methods of crowd control in India administered Kashmir with Indian government representatives. As the Government of India's report into alternative methods of crowd control has not been released publicly, we have not been able to review it or its recommendations.

Mexico: Religious Freedom

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to the government of Mexico on the alleged persecution of Christians in Chichiltepec, Chachalaca and other parts of that country.

Sir Alan Duncan: ​Issues relating to human rights and the rule of law are a priority for our engagement with Mexico. British Ministers and officials at our Embassy in Mexico City regularly raise our human rights concerns with the Mexican Government, including freedom of religion or belief and the treatment of the Christian community.

EU Countries: Diplomatic Service

Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many UK nationals are employed in UK embassies in EU countries.

Sir Alan Duncan: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) employs around 200 UK-based staff in its bilateral Embassies to the Member States of the European Union. By law such staff must be UK nationals or dual nationals.The FCO also employs around 1100 locally employed staff in these Embassies. Many are UK nationals or dual nationals but the FCO does not collect data centrally on their nationality.

Embassies

Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will take steps to cut all utility supplies to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and any other embassy that hosts people who have been charged with committing serious crimes.

Sir Alan Duncan: Article 25 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 (VCDR) requires receiving States to "accord full facilities for the performance of the functions of" foreign diplomatic missions. The VCDR is given effect in UK law by the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964.

Norfolk Island

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October 2016 to Question 49603, if he will name the small island communities that officials from his Department discussed with the Administrator of Norfolk Island.

Alok Sharma: At this meeting, officials discussed the broad principles of our relationships with the Overseas Territories rather than any specific small island communities.

Islamic State: War Crimes

Hilary Benn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 13 October 2016 to Question 47678, what steps the Government is taking with (a) other countries and (b) the UN to gather and preserve evidence of genocide and other war crimes committed by Daesh.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: This Government believes Daesh must be held accountable for its crimes in Syria and Iraq, as well as those committed in the wider region, in Europe and across the world. We are currently funding efforts to gather and preserve evidence of crimes committed by Daesh in Iraq, and continue to support the UN Commission of Inquiry's investigations in Syria. On 19 September, the Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), along with his Iraqi and Belgian colleagues, launched a global campaign to bring Daesh to justice. We intend this to include additional, UN-led action to gather and preserve evidence in Iraq. We are working with the Government of Iraq on a proposal to bring to the UN.

Yemen: Military Intervention

Hilary Benn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 8 September 2016 to Question 45062 on Yemen: military intervention when he plans to place the information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on his Department's website.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: This will be placed on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website in due course. I would also be happy to place this in the Library.

Brazil: Politics and Government

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of political freedom and strength of the democratic processes in Brazil.

Sir Alan Duncan: The Government follows political developments in Brazil closely. Brazil is a thriving democracy with strong institutions.

Niranjam Rasalingam

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the government of Burma on the detention without conviction and treatment in detention of Niranjan Rasalingam.

Alok Sharma: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has raised Mr Niranjan's case regularly with the Burmese authorities, focussing on the slow progress of the case, lack of due process, and the lack of impartial translation.The former Minister of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), raised the case with Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Tin in May. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for International Trade my Hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr Garnier), also raised the case when he met with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in September.

Ukraine: Aviation

Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what progress his Department has made on its work to obtain justice for people on board flight MH17 which was downed over Ukraine in July 2014.

Sir Alan Duncan: ​The UK is a strong supporter of the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT)'s work to ensure that those responsible for the downing of MH17 face prosecution. The JIT recently published an initial report providing clear evidence that the missile was Russian-made, and launched from within territory held by Russian-backed separatist groups at the time. We have encouraged Russia to engage constructively with the findings, the ongoing investigation, and any resulting attempts to prosecute those found to be responsible.

Aristole Monsengo

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo on the reported detention of the Aristole Monsengo; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Tobias Ellwood: ​We are aware of the case of Mr Monsengo; however we do not comment on individual cases.

Department for Exiting the European Union

Employment: EU Law

Jack Dromey: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of retaining the EU directives on (a) collective redundancies, (b) temporary and agency work and (c) working time on future diplomatic agreements and trade deals.

Mr David Jones: The Government will bring forward legislation in the next session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and ensure a functioning statute book on the day we leave the EU. This ‘Great Repeal Bill’ will end the authority of EU law and return power to the UK. The Bill will convert existing European Union law into domestic law, wherever practical.The Government will set out the content of the Bill and its implications in due course.

Foreign Investment in UK: Wales

Jonathan Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment the Government has made of the potential effect on foreign direct investment in Wales of the UK leaving the EU.

Mr David Jones: Across the world, we will strongly promote British interests and the economy; promoting the UK as a place to do business and trade with and driving inward and outward investment. The Department will continue to work closely with the Secretary of State for Wales and key stakeholders in Wales, including the Welsh Government, to ensure that the interests of Wales are taken into account.

Overseas Trade: Wales

Jonathan Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment the Government has made of the potential effect of EU tariffs and non-tariff barriers on specific sectors in Wales after the UK leaves the EU single market and the Customs Union.

Mr David Jones: The Government is determined to get the best possible deal for the UK’s future trading relations with the EU. The Department for Exiting the European Union is considering the full range of possible tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade across all areas of importance to the UK economy, and assessing ways in which these might be addressed.The Department will continue to work closely with the Wales Office and key stakeholders in Wales, including the Welsh Government, to ensure that the interests of Wales are taken into account.

EU Budget

Diana Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, if he will publish Britain's net contribution to the EU budget by NUTS 1 region for the latest fiscal year for which figures are available.

Mr David Jones: The EU budget is financed through national and not regional contributions, and only some receipts are distributed on a regional basis. It is therefore not possible to provide a regional breakdown of net contributions.

Brexit

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what recent assessment he has made of the scale of work generated by the UK's decision to leave the EU.

Mr David Jones: We are resourcing ourselves to ensure we get the best deal possible for all of the UK as we leave the EU and ensure a smooth and orderly exit.The overall size and scope of the department, including staffing and budget, are regularly reviewed to ensure we are appropriately staffed to deal with the task at hand.

Government Departments: Staff

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what assessment he has made of whether the staffing levels of (a) his Department and (b) other Government departments are sufficient to deal with the work generated by the UK's exit of the EU.

Mr David Jones: All departments are equipping themselves with the resources they need to get the best deal for the UK. The Department for Exiting the European Union now has just over 300 staff, and is growing fast. The overall size and scope of the new department, including staffing and budget, are regularly reviewed. We will ensure we are appropriately staffed to deal with the task at hand.

Departmental Coordination

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, whether his Department has a common strategy for co-ordinating consistent approaches to the UK's exit of the EU between departments.

Mr David Jones: The Department for Exiting the European Union has a team co-ordinating this cross-Government work to seize opportunities and ensure a smooth process of exit on the best possible terms.

Department for Exiting the European Union: Departmental Responsibilities

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, how many projects in operation in his Department deal with the UK's exit of the EU.

Mr David Jones: The majority of the work of my Department deals with the UK’s exit of the EU; it is also responsible for supporting and coordinating ongoing EU business.

Department for Exiting the European Union: Commonwealth

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, how many meetings he has had with representatives from Commonwealth countries since his Department was created; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Robin Walker: The Prime Minister has been clear we will not give a running commentary on our EU exit negotiations. We will ensure that we engage closely with all relevant interlocutors. Details of Ministerial meetings will be published in the Department’s Quarterly Transparency Returns, which will be made publicly available on GOV.UK.

EU Grants and Loans: Wales

Jonathan Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, when his Department expects the final EU Structural Fund payments to be made to Wales.

Mr David Jones: All European Structural and Investment Funds projects signed before we leave the EU will be fully funded, even when these projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU. Funding for these projects will be honoured by the Treasury if they provide strong value for money and are in line with domestic strategic priorities.The UK continues to be a member of the EU and will meet the obligations as a full member state.The Prime Minister has committed to working closely with the Welsh Government, together with the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive, to ensure that we get the best possible deal for all parts of the United Kingdom. In particular, we have established the new Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations, which brings together constituent parts of the United Kingdom to seek to agree a UK approach to negotiations. At the first meeting Ministers agreed to meet monthly to share evidence and to take forward joint analysis as we prepare to leave the EU.

Brexit

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, whether his Department has taken out insurance to cover an adverse costs order in relation to the Supreme Court appeal over Article 50.

Mr David Jones: In line with other Government Departments, the Department for Exiting the European Union will pay its legal costs from its budget.

Department for Exiting the European Union: Disclosure of Information

Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November 2016 to Question 52723, when he plans to publish his Department's next Quarterly Transparency Returns on gov.uk.

Mr David Jones: Details of Ministers' meetings will be published on a quarterly basis in arrears as is standard practice. The next data release will relate to the period July to September 2016.

UK Trade with EU

Jonathan Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what the Government's policy is on the maximum contribution the UK is willing to make to the EU budget in order to gain access to the Single market.

Mr Robin Walker: The UK continues to be a member of the EU and will meet the obligations as a full member state. This includes paying into the EU budget.We have already informed the House that we are not going to provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of our negotiations to leave the EU, but we will strike a deal in the best interests of UK taxpayers, and which gives UK companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the Single Market.

Attorney General

Rolls-Royce: Corruption

Mr Roger Godsiff: To ask the Attorney General, what meetings he has had with ministerial colleagues to discuss the Serious Fraud Office's investigation of Rolls Royce.

Robert Buckland: I meet with ministerial colleagues frequently to discuss a variety of issues. However, as was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Government’s policy to provide details of all such meetings.

Crown Prosecution Service

Nick Thomas-Symonds: To ask the Attorney General, what the staff budget of the Crown Prosecution Service was in each year since 2010.

Robert Buckland: The staff budget of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), in each year since 2010, is given below:Financial YearStaff Budgets £’000s2010-11737,6672011-12372,6272012-13361,2782013-14347,2602014-15313,1692015-16291,472

Crown Prosecution Service: Temporary Employment

Nick Thomas-Symonds: To ask the Attorney General, how much the Crown Prosecution Service spent on agency staff in the last 12 months.

Robert Buckland: In the last full financial year, 2015-16, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spent £7,842,489 on agency staff.

Government Legal Department

Nick Thomas-Symonds: To ask the Attorney General, what the annual budget was for the Government Legal Department and the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.

Robert Buckland: The annual budget for the Government Legal Department and the former Treasury Solicitor’s Department can be found in the published Parliamentary Supply Estimates for HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor, which also contains provision for the Attorney General’s Office and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, which can be found on www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-main-estimates. The budget for the Government Legal Department (GLD), formerly the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSD), can be found in each Estimate in Part II: Subhead detail Row A. There are separate budgets for Resources and Capital. The resource budget is to cover the Government Legal Department’s costs which are not recovered from clients, specifically the costs of public interest casework (time and disbursements) on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office and the Government Legal Service (GLS) Secretariat (up to and including 2015-16). Supplementary Estimates for HM Procurator General and Treasury Solicitor were taken in 2013-14, 2012-13 and 2010-11. Supplementary Estimates are used to seek additional resources, capital and/or cash or to reallocate existing resources and capital to new activities. These can be found on www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-supplementary-estimates

Crown Prosecution Service

Nick Thomas-Symonds: To ask the Attorney General, in what proportion of cases the Crown Prosecution Service used (a) in-house lawyers and (b) independent barristers in each year since 2010.

Robert Buckland: Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) cases are not prosecuted exclusively by in-house lawyers or independent barristers. Many cases are transferred between in-house and self-employed advocates. Therefore it is not possible to report on the proportion of cases prosecuted solely by one type of advocate or the other. The CPS does record the proportion of work undertaken across the 13 CPS Areas in the Crown Court and High Court by in-house and self-employed advocates by value, in accordance with the prosecution fee schemes. Data for the last 6 years is contained in table 1.  TABLE 1 - Proportion of the work undertaken in the Crown Court by in-house and self-employed advocates by value Financial YearEstimated in-house advocate costsExpenditure on external advocatesProportion of in-house costs (%)Proportion of external costs (%)2010-1120,020,236134,194,87013.0%87.0%2011-1220,787,591111,041,04413.5%84.2%2012-1320,286,293110,608,52413.2%84.5%2013-1421,759,812114,606,54214.1%84.0%2014-1515,932,453118,557,07710.3%88.2%2015-1614,953,333132,024,9999.7%89.8%Source: CIS Crown Advocacy & Finance modules   In the magistrates’ courts the CPS collects data on half-day court sessions conducted by in-house advocates (Associate Prosecutors, Crown Prosecutors and Senior Crown Prosecutors) and external advocates (Agents). Data for the last 6 years is contained in table 2.  TABLE 2 – The number of half-day court sessions conducted by in-house and external advocates Financial YearLawyer SessionsAP SessionsAP2 SessionsAgent SessionsCovered by Agents %2010-11198,798103,6264,35833,0339.7%2011-12175,67093,7157,25727,8929.2%2012-13132,93276,5158,18155,70320.4%2013-14115,71764,2395,78166,71726.4%2014-15104,09857,4504,03063,29527.7%2015-16101,15651,9143,36865,67529.6%Source: CIS Manpower module

Department for International Development

Developing Countries: Education

Mr Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure that her Department's education spending delivers the best learning outcomes.

James Wharton: A focus on improving access to school and learning outcomes drives DFID’s approach to investment in education in priority countries.DFID has pledged to support 11 million children with an education between 2015 and 2020. Not just to get children into school, but to ensure they are learning. All of DFID’s education programmes prioritise learning and we are seeing results; for example the Girls Education Challenge has increased the learning outcomes in literacy and mathematics for 700,000 girls across 18 countries. Motivated, trained, effective teachers are essential for children to learn. In Tanzania we are rolling out in-service teacher training with a focus on literacy, numeracy and better pedagogy for over 45,000 teachers in 7 disadvantaged regions.In Bangladesh, DFID support the ‘English in Action’ programme in which school teachers receive specially designed training modules and lesson plans directly to their low cost mobile phones. It has been shown to improve their teaching and is being modified for use in Nigeria. DFID is also working internationally to embed a global focus on the quality of education.DFID championed the inclusion of learning indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals and increased support for international monitoring to track progress. We have commissioned rigorous impact evaluations to understand what works to improve learning and ensure good value for money is achieved.

Overseas Aid

Stephen Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what (a) countries and (b) programmes will receive the additional funding announced by the Prime Minister on 21 September 2016.

Rory Stewart: The additional humanitarian funding announced by the Prime Minister will support:those affected by conflict and natural disaster in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, the Sahel, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma;refugees and displaced people in Uganda, Kenya, Afghanistan, and the Mediterranean region; andthose affected by El Nino in eastern and southern Africa, including Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.An additional £80 million will support a new jobs compact in Ethiopia, which will create 100,000 jobs for Ethiopians and refugees. The UK will also contribute £2.5 million to a new fund, led by the International Organisation for Migration, which will facilitate durable solutions for refugees by supporting additional countries to offer resettlement places.It is in the UK’s interest to respond quickly to humanitarian crises overseas, offering people protection and opportunities close to their home countries or long-term resettlement in a third country. This saves lives, helps to reduce long-term poverty, and is key to reducing the risk of people being caught up in uncontrolled, mass migration.

Burma: Armed Forces

Valerie Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what estimate she has made of how much of the funding provided by her Department for projects in Burma is administered by companies which are owned by the Burmese Army.

Rory Stewart: DFID does not fund any organisations whose projects are administered by the Burmese Army or by military holding companies.

Palestinians: Health Services and Water

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the availability of access to (a) clean water and (b) medical supplies in (i) Gaza and (ii) the West Bank; and if she will make a statement.

Rory Stewart: The World Health Organisation (WHO) assesses 90-95% of water in Gaza is undrinkable. In the West Bank there is insufficient water to meet the population’s needs. According to WHO, the availability of some medical supplies and services is affected by movement and access restrictions. The UK regularly raises with the Israeli authorities the need to ensure fair access to clean water and medical supplies for the West Bank and Gaza.

Burma: Overseas Aid

Valerie Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of her Department's allocated aid for Burma will be administered by the Department for International Trade (a) in this financial year and (b) in the next three financial years.

Rory Stewart: No DFID funding for Burma will be administered by the Department for Trade in this financial year and there are no current plans to do so.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Secondary Education

Dr Lisa Cameron: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to support adolescent girls into secondary education in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); which programmes her Department supports that address access to secondary education in DRC; and how many girls have been assisted to engage in and to complete secondary schooling as a result of such work in the last five years.

James Wharton: DFID has supported education in DRC since 2013 through scholarships and accelerated learning programmes which focus on primary education and the transition to secondary schooling. We do this through two programmes, Vas-y Fille (‘Go girl’), and Accelere. Vas-y Fille have provided scholarships to over 63,000 girls and enrolled 9,400 out of school girls in accelerated learning programmes. Accelere has enrolled 20,730 new primary school learners, including 10,386 girls. This contributes to the government’s manifesto commitment to provide a decent education to 11 million children.

New Zealand: Earthquakes

Oliver Colvile: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will offer assistance to New Zealand to manage the effects of the recent earthquakes in that country.

Rory Stewart: The UK has monitored the situation since the earthquake occurred and stood ready to offer assistance if required.The UK will not be providing a response in the aftermath of the earthquake, as the Government of New Zealand have not requested international assistance.

Voluntary Work: Young People

Richard Burden: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many people participated in the International Citizens Services from (a) Birmingham, Northfield constituency and (b) each region of England in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.

James Wharton: The International Citizen Service (ICS) aims to be representative of young people in Britain, both in terms of diversity and reaching all regions of the country.Table 1 demonstrates how many participants there were from the programme in the Birmingham Northfield constituency. Please note that further to this, one volunteer has been selected to take part in 2017. Table 1YearNumber of participants2012020133201402015020161Total4 Table 2 provides a breakdown of participants from each region of England. Table 2Region of England20122013201420152016Grand TotalEast Midlands33147177234182773East of England511992572983241129London1003845096925412226North East11519010089341North West461753183263011166South East763344926055222029South West502103094023461317West Midlands32139193242238844Yorkshire and Humber49166191252208866Grand Total448180525363151275110691

Developing Countries: Renewable Energy

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to increase investment in decentralised renewable energy in developing countries.

James Wharton: I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I provided on 17th November 2016 to question number 52717.

British Overseas Territories: EU Grants and Loans

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 14 November 2016 to Question 52401, how her Department plans to ensure that those Overseas Territories which received funding from the EU Economic Development Fund have that funding gap filled once the UK has left the EU.

James Wharton: DFID will make an assessment of the implications of leaving the EU for the UK’s development work, including with regard to the Overseas Territories, as part of the negotiations for exiting the European Union.

Syria: Armed Conflict

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the effect of renewed airstrikes in Aleppo on the humanitarian situation in that city; and if she will make a statement.

Rory Stewart: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on 17 November at least 32 deaths in eastern Aleppo since Regime and Russian airstrikes recommenced on 15 November. Strikes have hit essential civilian infrastructure including a blood bank and a children’s hospital. Food is now running out for the 275,000 people trapped in Aleppo city. On 16 November, the Secretary of State issued a public statement calling for Russia to halt the new wave of bombings and for humanitarian workers to be granted immediate access to provide food and medicine to those in need.

Department for Education

UK Commission for Employment and Skills: Closures

Jim Fitzpatrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has been made of the effect on the productivity of the economy of the decision to close the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the associated Skills Sector Councils.

Robert Halfon: The remit and priorities of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) were to: lead the debate with industry to drive better outcomes for skills, jobs and growth;work with industrial partnerships and wider networks to push forward employer ownership of skills;test out employer-led innovation to address persistent skills challenges; andhelp businesses realise the potential of their people through Investors in People (IIP). While these activities helped to raise awareness of the importance of skills development, which is a driver of productivity, no specific assessment has been made of any effect on UK productivity as a result of the decision to close the UKCES and the associated Sector Skills Councils. As a result of these decisions, Whitehall departments have been working with the UK Commission to agree a way forward. National Occupational Standards (NOS) will be managed by the Devolved Administrations and transferred to another public sector organisation. Decisions on the detail of how NOS will be managed are the responsibility of the Devolved Administrations. The contents of the NOS database will remain publicly available and employers throughout the UK can continue to use NOS if they so choose although they are not a mandatory requirement in England for either qualifications or apprenticeships. The management of the Employer Skills Survey, the Employer Perspectives Survey and the Labour Market Information for All Portal is being moved into the Department for Education. The Investors in People function will continue and the Government is looking to secure its future.

Digital Technology: Young People

Karen Lumley: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that young adults from rural communities have the digital skills and experience required to enter the modern workforce.

Robert Halfon: The Government recognises the increasing importance of basic digital skills to get on in life and in work. Digital skills training forms part of the provision funded by the Government through the £1.5billion-a-year Adult Education Budget. Colleges and other providers have the flexibility to use funding from that budget to respond to local need. Study towards a qualification in a digital-related subject can form part of the fee-free training available to young adults aged 19-23 who do not yet have a full Level 2 or Level 3 qualification. Digital skills training up to Level 2 may also be provided free of charge to unemployed adults aged 19 and over, where it is needed to improve their prospects of gaining employment. The Digital Economy Bill, currently before Parliament, contains a measure that would introduce a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that study for specified digital basic skills is free of charge for adults who do not have an equivalent qualification.

Further Education and Sixth Form Education

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the reasons are for the change in timetable for the publication of the Sussex area review on further education and sixth form colleges.

Robert Halfon: As confirmed in the Area Review Guidance published in March 2016, we will publish the area review reports once each wave of the reviews has been completed. We expect to publish the Sussex area review report by the end of November 2016.

Languages: Qualifications

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to encourage the uptake of modern foreign language qualifications.

Nick Gibb: The Government is committed to increasing the proportion of the population gaining language qualifications. As a result of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), the number of students studying a language at GCSE has increased from 40% in 2010 to 49% in 2016. In August we confirmed that EBacc entry would become a headline measure in school performance tables from this year, alongside EBacc achievement. This will encourage schools to enter more pupils for the EBacc and for languages in future, which should increase the pool of potential people studying languages at A level and beyond. The Teaching Schools Council’s report on its review of modern languages teaching practice in secondary schools is being published on 18 November at http://tscouncil.org.uk/. The review’s aim is to provide thought-provoking, practical advice to teachers to improve their pedagogy, with the aspiration that this will lead to pupils getting greater enjoyment and making more progress in languages, so that greater numbers choose to study languages beyond Key Stage 3.

Apprentices

Mr Adrian Bailey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many employers in the (a) public and (b) private sector offered apprenticeships in (i) Sandwell, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) England in (A) 2010, (B) 2011, (C) 2012 and (D) 2013.

Robert Halfon: Numbers of public or private sector employers offering apprenticeships is not counted by the Department. We do publish information on workplaces offering apprenticeships, which counts the number of individual workplaces at site level. However one employer may have multiple sites. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/570133/apprenticeships-workplaces-by-region.xlsx Latest data on apprenticeship starts by constituency and region can be found in the supplementary tables accompanying the Statistical First Release SFA/SFR36, published on 17 November 2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/570129/learner-participation-outcomes-and-level-of-highest-qualification-data-tables-November16.xls

Young People: Unemployment

Mr Adrian Bailey: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department collects on the number of young people in each local authority area classified as (a) not in employment, education or training and (b) unable to be located or unknown.

Edward Timpson: Local authorities collect information to identify young people who are not participating in education and training, or who are at risk of not doing so, to allow them to target their resources on those who need them most. The information collected is submitted to the Department for Education monthly, including the numbers and proportions of young people in each local authority area that are not in education, employment or training (NEET) or whose activity is unknown. The Department publishes data for each local authority including:participation information for those aged 16 and17: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participation-in-education-and-training-by-local-authority;the number and proportion of 16, 17 and 18 year old NEETs:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-data-by-local-authority-2012-16-to-18-year-olds-not-in-education-employment-or-training; andlocal authority scorecards bringing together a range of data to give a holistic view of local authority performance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/young-people-neet-comparative-data-scorecard.

Apprentices

Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much has been spent from the public purse on apprenticeships per capita in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside, (c) the North West and (d) the UK in each year since 2010.

Robert Halfon: The total funding provided to support apprenticeships in England is published in our annual funding statement here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-funding-agency-annual-report-and-accounts-2015-to-2016 We do not hold the relevant data centrally to provide details of per capita apprenticeship spend as requested. However, the latest data on apprenticeship starts by constituency and region can be found in the supplementary tables accompanying the Statistical First Release SFA/SFR36, published on 17 November 2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/570129/learner-participation-outcomes-and-level-of-highest-qualification-data-tables-November16.xls

Overseas Students

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the contribution to the UK economy of (a) non-UK EU students and (b) non-EU international students.

Joseph Johnson: The most recent estimate of the value of international education to the UK can be found in the Government’s International Education Strategy, published in July 2013. This analysis showed that EU and Non-EU students at UK universities contributed an estimated £9.7bn in 2011 to the UK economy (tuition fees and living expenditure). The analysis does not separate non-UK EU students and non-EU international students.The Department will shortly be publishing the latest estimates of the total value of education exports to the UK economy for 2014.

Overseas Students

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to revise the estimated financial contribution to UK universities made by (a) home and EU students and (b) non-EU students between 2015-16 and 2019-20 to take account of the vote to leave the EU.

Joseph Johnson: Any effects on the financial contribution to UK universities made by Home, EU and non-EU students following the UK’s exit from the EU will depend on wider discussions about the UK’s relationship with the EU.

Students

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to revise the estimate of the contribution to the UK economy made by (a) home and EU students and (b) non-EU students between 2015-16 and 2019-20 to take account of the vote to leave the EU.

Joseph Johnson: Any effects on the contribution to the UK economy made by Home, EU and non-EU students following the UK’s exit from the EU will depend on wider discussions about the UK’s relationship with the EU.

Ministry of Justice

Youth Justice Board

Diana Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how (a) much funding was allocated to and (b) many full-time equivalent staff were employed by the Youth Justice Board in each year since 2009-10.

Dr Phillip Lee: The welfare of young people in custody is extremely important. We make sure the YJB are appropriately staffed and funded to carry out the important work of keeping children safe. We will be setting out our plans to reform the way we manage young offenders in the coming weeks. The total funding allocated to the Youth Justice Board in each year since 2009/10 is in the following table. During this period the number of young people in custody has substantially fallen. This has led to a smaller youth estate, and a reduction in the YJB’s budget. 2009/102010/112011/122012/132013/142014/152015/162016/17Total Funding (£m)539493424383328260224222  The average number of full-time equivalent staff can be found in the Youth Justice Board Annual Report and Accounts available on gov.uk.

Immigration: Appeals

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for immigration tribunals.

Sir Oliver Heald: The Immigration and Asylum Chambers of the First-tier and Upper Tribunal are administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS). HMCTS has provided an additional 4,500 First-tier tribunal sitting days for this financial year compared to 2015/16. Clearance times for statutory appeal applications and judicial review applications in the Upper Tribunal have decreased from June 2015 to June 2016 .HMCTS keeps performance and resource levels under close review. The Government has also recently published a consultation on expediting appeals from immigration detainees.

Prisons: Death

Fiona Mactaggart: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in which prisons deaths in custody occurred in the last 12 months; and which such deaths were (a) the result of natural causes, (b) self-inflicted, (c) caused by others and (d) the result of causes as yet unidentified.

Mr Sam Gyimah: The Safety in Custody statistics are published quarterly, and establishment level data on natural causes and self-inflicted deaths are included and updated annually. The latest bulletin was published on 27 October 2016 and can be found on gov.uk. Lists of the prisons in which apparent homicides and deaths awaiting further information prior to classification took place in 2015 are provided below. Apparent homicides by prison, 2015, England and Wales   PrisonNumber of deaths Dartmoor1 Doncaster1 Long Lartin1 Nottingham1 Peterborough1 Ranby1 Sheppey: Swaleside1 Wandsworth1 Deaths awaiting further information by prison, 2015, England and Wales PrisonNumber of deaths   Altcourse1   Brixton1   Dartmoor1   High Down1   Liverpool1   Lowdham Grange1   Winchester1Data Sources and Quality These figures are derived from the NOMS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges numbers may change from time to time.

Reoffenders

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many serious further offence investigations were undertaken by probation services in (a) England and (b) Wales in each of the last four years.

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which body is appointed to investigate serious further offences in respect of probation services in England and Wales; and whether she has plans to change the arrangements for such investigations.

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions a member of either a probation or a community rehabilitation company was subject to disciplinary proceedings following the completion of a serious further offence investigation in (a) England and (b) Wales in the last four years.

Mr Sam Gyimah: The table below provides a breakdown of the figures of the Serious Further Offence Reviews (SFO) Reviews that were completed following investigations undertaken by probation services in England and Wales between 1 January 2012 – 31 December 2015.YearEnglandWalesTotal1 Jan – 31 Dec 2012422214431 Jan – 31 Dec 2013400224221 Jan – 31 Dec 2014384204041 Jan – 31 Dec 201547123494 Currently the National Probation Service or the Community Rehabilitation Company responsible for the management of the offender is required to complete the internal review of a serious further offence. Internal reviews are completed by staff who were not involved in the management of the case. They are then independently scrutinised by senior operational staff in the National Offender Management Service to ensure that they are sufficiently thorough and identify all relevant lessons for the management of future cases. Ministers are currently considering future arrangements for the production of SFO reviews.Where an offender under probation supervision is convicted of a further offence, the offender concerned bears the responsibility for that offence. The SFO review process is not a disciplinary or a capability investigation and such investigations do not fall in scope of the Probation SFO Review Procedures. Data on staff members who have been subject to disciplinary procedures following a wider investigation that had been prompted by the SFO review investigation are not held centrally in a readily accessible format for the last four years. To obtain these data would exceed cost limits.

Ministry of Justice: Pay

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of women are employed by her Department on a non-London pay structure in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of women are employed by her Department on an outer London pay structure in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.

Dr Phillip Lee: The proportion of female staff on outer and non-inner London pay range grades, by equivalent grade as at 30th June 2016 is included in the table below. Grade Non-London Outer LondonGrade 7/643%3%SEO70%5%HEO72%4%EO73%7%AO83%6%AA83%9%SCS Pay Band 1/1A25%1%SCS Pay Band 221%0%SCS Pay Band 30%0%   NPS87%0% The figures includes staff within HQ, HM Courts and Tribunals Service, National Offender Management Service, Legal Aid Agency, Office of the Public Guardian and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Fast Stream staff are captured under the HEO pay grade. The National Probation Service (NPS) does not have an inner London scale and figures for the NPS cover all local delivery units based within greater London. NPS staff do not have grade equivalencies and are therefore reported as a single group. The figures do not add to 100% as the figures exclude % of staff working on inner London pay-ranges or locations.

Drugs: Misuse

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people who were the subject of drug treatment as a condition of a community order breached that order in each of the last four years in (a) England and (b) Wales; and how many such people were subsequently given a custodial sentence.

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people who were subject either to (a) a probation supervision order or (b) a parole licence were in breach for non-compliance with such an order or licence in (i) England and (ii) Wales in each of the last four years.

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people who failed to comply with (a) a community order and (b) parole licence terms subsequently received a custodial sentence in (i) England and (ii) Wales in each of the last four years.

Mr Sam Gyimah: The information requested is not collected centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Judiciary: Cardiff

Mrs Madeleine Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what training is provided to magistrates and judges in the Cardiff courts in understanding coercive and controlling behaviours; and if she will make a statement.

Sir Oliver Heald: Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, responsibility for the training of the judiciary rests with the Lord Chief Justice as Head of the Judiciary. This is exercised through the Judicial College under judicial direction. Induction and continuation courses made available across the judiciary in England and Wales cover domestic abuse, and content is refreshed regularly. As part of the magistrates’ minimum training requirements, they must attend face to face freestanding domestic abuse training. Training for magistrates, particularly in the adult and family courts, contain significant exercises looking at the dynamics of domestic abuse and the statutory tools available to them in domestic abuse cases. Where Magistrates sit in the Specialist Domestic Violence Courts, they receive additional specialist training.

Employment Tribunals Service: Fees and Charges

Dawn Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 8 November 2016 to Question 51088, on employment Tribunals Service: fees and charges, when Ministers of her Department were first provided with a draft copy of the review.

Sir Oliver Heald: We receive advice regularly on progress of the review and we will publish its conclusions when completed.

Employment Tribunals Service: Fees and Charges

Dawn Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 8 November 2016 to Question 51088, on Employment Tribunals Service: fees and charges, how much time her Department has allocated to full and careful consideration of the relevant evidence.

Sir Oliver Heald: We do not hold the information which would enable us to calculate the time that has been spent on the review since it was launched.

Driving: Disqualification

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been disqualified from driving in each month of each of the last five years.

Mr Sam Gyimah: The number of people disqualified from driving in each month, in England and Wales, from 2010 to 2015, can be viewed in the table. Number of people disqualified from driving for all motoring offences by month, England and Wales, 2011 to 2015. (1)(2)  Month20112012201320142015  January7,1247,2326,6756,2274,451  February6,4746,0115,2514,7733,920  March7,2285,9665,1254,8304,515  April5,6405,6105,5234,8924,935  May6,5506,2105,4564,8574,682  June6,8245,4964,9345,0585,231  July6,4146,0975,5585,1785,467  August6,7146,0415,0674,6434,595  September6,6055,6875,2044,8665,342  October6,6586,3895,5774,6065,359  November6,6626,1035,4093,9125,293  December5,6464,7074,8103,8414,925  Annual78,53971,54964,58957,68358,715  (1) The figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.  (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.  Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice.

Courts: Sunderland

Bridget Phillipson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to her Oral Answer of 1 November 2016, Official Report, column 777, and the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South's subsequent communication of 3 November 2016 to the Minister for Courts and Justice, when she plans to meet with that hon. Member and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central in order to discuss plans to rebuild the Sunderland courts complex.

Sir Oliver Heald: I have arranged to meet the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central on 29 November in order to discuss courts in Sunderland.

Prisons: Unmanned Air Vehicles

Luciana Berger: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many drones carrying contraband goods have been seized within prison grounds in each of the last three years.

Mr Sam Gyimah: We remain vigilant to all incidents involving drones and take the threat they pose to prison security very seriously. A range of methods to counter the threat posed by drones are being trialled and evaluated for their effectiveness across the prison estate. There were no reported incidents of drones carrying contraband being seized within prisons in 2013; in 2014 there were 2 reported incidents; and in 2015 there were 11 reported incidents. The Ministry of Justice intends to routinely publish information on prison drone incidents in the future. Data for 2016 onwards will be provided in due course as part of the normal publication schedule.  Note: All figures have been drawn from live administrative data systems. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.

Ministry of Defence

Red Snapper Group

Sir Henry Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will provide a breakdown of the £20.8 million paid to Red Snapper since 2013.

Mike Penning: The payments made to Red Snapper cover two contract periods and can be broken down, by financial year (FY), as follows:First contract period (February 2013 - January 2016)FY 2013-14 - £4.4 millionFY 2014-15 - £6.8 millionFY 2015-16 - £4.9 millionCurrent contract period (February 2016 - September 2016)FY 2015-16 - £0.9 millionFY 2016-17 - £3.8 million

Red Snapper Group

Sir Henry Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether Red Snapper has received any additional payments from his Department for travel or accommodation expenses.

Mike Penning: Yes. During the first contract period with Red Snapper for the provision of staff for the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (February 2013 - January 2016), accommodation expenses, where applicable, were claimed by Red Snapper personnel from the Ministry of Defence and paid through the company. These expenses are included within the total amount of the £2.97 million claimed by contracted personnel. Under the current contract all such claims are a matter for Red Snapper.

Red Snapper Group

Sir Henry Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much from the public purse has been claimed by the 127 investigators recruited by Red Snapper to date.

Mike Penning: The total amount claimed for expenses by contracted personnel recruited through Red Snapper is £2.97 million.

Red Snapper Group

Sir Henry Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much from the public purse has been paid by the 127 investigators recruited by Red Snapper to date.

Mike Penning: Pay and other conditions of service for Red Snapper personnel are a matter for them. The Ministry of Defence makes payments to Red Snapper based on an hourly charge rate which varies depending on the qualifications and experience required for each investigative role.

Iraq Historic Allegations Team

Sir Henry Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many recruiters at Red Snapper are employed under the contract awarded by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team.

Mike Penning: Red Snapper are contracted to provide the Iraq Historic Allegations Team with appropriately qualified investigative personnel in accordance with the requirements set out in the contract. The number of recruiting or other support staff that Red Snapper employ to meet that requirement is a matter for them. No recruiters are employed under the terms of their contract with the Ministry of Defence.

Ministry of Defence: Pay

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of women are employed by his Department on non-London pay structures in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.

Mark Lancaster: As at 31st October 2016, the proportion of females employed in these roles isCivil Service GradeFemale ProportionE2 (Administrative Assistant)36.5%E1 (Administrative Officer)71.1%D (Executive Officer)45.3%C2 (Higher Executive Officer)38.1%Fast Streamer50.0%C1 (Senior Executive Officer)29.5%B2 (Grade 7)30.0%B1 (Grade 6)22.3%Senior Civil Servant Pay Band 126.5%Senior Civil Servant Pay Band 216.7%Senior Civil Servant Pay Band 3Less than 5 femalesTotal44.70%Note - For grades below Senior Civil Service (SCS), this is based on all individuals on a non-London pay mandate code, who are not in receipt of any London related Recruitment and Retention Allowance (RRA) or London Weighting. For SCS, it is based on individuals not in receipt of any type of London related RRA or London Weighting and also excludes individuals who are based at London Locations, as SCS pay band 2 and SCS pay band 3 do not receive these allowances.

Ministry of Defence: Pay

Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of women are employed by his Department on an outer London pay structure in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.

Mark Lancaster: As at 31 October 2016, the proportion of females employed in these roles isCivil Service GradeFemale ProportionE2 (Administrative Assistant)25.8%E1 (Administrative Officer)56.6%D (Executive Officer)41.0%C2 (Higher Executive Officer)30.8%Fast Streamerless than 5 femalesC1 (Senior Executive Officer)45.0%B2 (Grade 7)42.9%B1 (Grade 6)less than 5 femalesSenior Civil Servant Pay Band 1less than 5 femalesSenior Civil Servant Pay Band 2less than 5 femalesSenior Civil Servant Pay Band 3No SCS PB3Total41.00% Note: This is based on all individuals in receipt of Outer London Weighting, Recruitment and Retention Allowance (RRA) Central Control Location , RRA Outer London Weighting or RRA Local control Location 1-Northwood RRA if not in receipt of Outer London Weighting.

Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Maritime Patrol Aircraft are based in the UK; and where those aircraft are based.

Mike Penning: In the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review the Government announced that the United Kingdom would purchase a fleet of nine Boeing P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft to provide a maritime patrol capability.These aircraft will all be based at RAF Lossiemouth.

Cyprus: Military Bases

Dr Matthew Offord: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to prevent the illegal hunting of wildlife on the Akrotiri and Dhekelia British Sovereign Bases Areas in Cyprus.

Mike Penning: The Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) Administration has enacted legislation for the protection and management of nature and wildlife[1], which protects wild fauna, such as marine turtles, seals, dolphins and bats. Legislation also exists to protect, and regulate the hunting of, game and wild birds[2], which includes provisions making it an offence to use certain indiscriminate methods such as lime sticks or mist-nests to hunt game or birds. All fenced military areas are protected from poaching, and in the wider territory game reserves and special protected areas no hunting is allowed. Hot spots for illegal hunting of protected species and hunting out of season have been identified and are patrolled on a frequent basis by SBA police and environmental wardens. In addition to normal patrolling activity the SBA Police conduct extensive seasonal Police anti trapping campaigns, joint patrols with Republic of Cyprus Game Wardens, operations to remove paraphernalia used for trapping and educational programmes with local farmers.The specific threat of illegal trapping of migratory birds is one of the SBA Administration's priorities. Since November 2014, the SBA has removed 61 acres of invasive acacia bushes, which are planted and used by illegal bird trappers at a cost in excess of €400,000. As part of their enforcement activity the SBA Police continues to work closely with non-government bodies such as the RSPB and BirdLife of Cyprus to tackle bird trapping. The SBA Administration has also participated with non-governmental organisations to endorse a Strategic Action Plan to counter illegal bird trapping, which brings various measures together to tackle the problem. This plan is currently being considered by the Republic of Cyprus. In the last two years, the SBA Police have arrested 62 poachers and conducted 55 major bird trapping equipment clearance operations, resulting in the seizure of 1,330 mist-nets and 857 lime sticks.[1] The Protection and Management of Nature and Wildlife Ordinance 2007.[2] The Game and Wild Birds Ordinance 2008.

Ministry of Defence: Welsh Language

Chris Elmore: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether recruitment to posts in his Department have included Welsh language skills as an essential or desirable criteria.

Mark Lancaster: Armed Forces personnel posted to Wales are not required to have Welsh language skills.Civilian posts in the Ministry of Defence which are based in Wales have been advertised with requirements for Welsh language skills, both as essential and as desirable. Recruitment is generally conducted by managers at a local level and they are responsible for setting job criteria. However, the Department would expect a vacancy holder with a post in Wales to specify, as a minimum, Welsh language skills as desirable. If the post was public facing we would expect it to be essential.

Syria: Military Intervention

Lucy Powell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 26 July 2016 to Question 43260, what progress has been made on the development of Coalition policy on investigating civilian casualties.

Mike Penning: While the Coalition continues to consider the need for a joint policy on investigating civilian casualties, the position remains as set out in my Answer of 26 July. The UK, as with other Coalition nations, will investigate allegations of civilian casualties according to its national methodology.

Military Bases: Closures

Nia Griffith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the economic effect of the defence estate closures announced on 7 November 2016 on each local community affected.

Mark Lancaster: The Better Defence Estate strategy has been developed using military advice from the Front Line Commands as well as the Chief of Defence People. Its purpose is to optimise infrastructure to support military capability.Consolidating the estate enables us to release sites which do not effectively accommodate the capabilities based there and invest in significantly better facilities to support the men and women of our Armed Forces. It will also enable greater certainty for service families, with an estate designed around regional and capability clusters.Following the announcement of the strategy, the Ministry of Defence will now begin engagement with the relevant Local Authorities on how to take forward the disposal of each site and where there are potential opportunities to maximise both enhance local economic development as well as value for money for Defence.

Military Bases: Closures

Nia Griffith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if his Department will take steps to ensure that defence estate sites whose closure was announced on 7 November 2016 and which have historical significance are retained in public ownership.

Nia Griffith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many defence estates sites whose closure was announced on 7 November 2016 are potentially affected by the Crichel Down Rules; and if he will make a statement.

Nia Griffith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessments his Department plans to undertake to determine the safety of land within those parts of the defence estate whose closure was announced on 7 November 2016 making sites safe again.

Mark Lancaster: “A Better Defence Estate” is a military-led review. All sites that have been identified for disposal will be disposed of in accordance with the standard procedures mandated by HM Treasury, which ensure best value is achieved for the taxpayer. This process involves determining if any site is impacted by the Crichel Down Rules. It is too early at this time to say how many of the sites may be affected. All sites will also be subject to assessment to determine if there are any contamination or safety issues. Any issues will either be rectified prior to sale or made known to potential purchasers, depending on the individual circumstances of the sale in line with Departmental policy. As part of the disposals process other public bodies will have an opportunity to express an interest in a site. The Ministry of Defence recognises the historical significance of designated sites that have been identified for disposal and, where this is applicable, appropriate maintenance plans will be explicitly part of the tender process.

Defence Estates

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.6 of the National Audit Office report, Delivering the Defence Estate, published on 15 November 2016; whether his Department has undertaken modelling to forecast the cumulative increase in the shortfall in funding required to sustain (a) service family accommodation and (b) naval dockyards.

Mark Lancaster: In respect of Service Family Accommodation (SFA), the Department has invested in improving SFA and around 90% of housing meets the Decent Homes standard. We have assessed that around £300 million is required over the next 30 years to sustain and maintain SFA.In respect of naval bases, risk adjusted modelling is run to forecast the costs required to sustain the naval dockyards.

Defence Estates

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.19 of the National Audit Office report, Delivering the Defence Estate, published on 15 November 2016, for what reasons his Department predicts that it will have insufficient capital available to fund its re-provision requirements as part of its Footprint Strategy.

Mark Lancaster: The Department's modelling has shown that the total anticipated receipts from disposals, in addition to the funding allocated within the Department's budget, will be less than the total investment required to generate the capability benefits and longer term savings to the Department in running costs described in the Better Defence Estate Strategy.

Military Bases: Greater London

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department's most recent estimate is of the value of proceeds which will come from disposal of its sites in London; and whether his Department has undertaken modelling which forecasts the projected future values of such sites.

Mark Lancaster: The disposal of sites within London is expected to achieve Gross receipts of approximately £1 billion over the 25 year Better Defence Estate Strategy timespan. It will also provide savings rising to £3 billion in total by 2040. Details of the receipt expected for specific sites will not be released as to do so could prejudice the Departments commercial interests. Modelling work to forecast values has been undertaken and will continue to be matured as sites are prepared for the market. As part of its standard disposal process the Ministry of Defence will employ planning and marketing property consultants to ensure potential receipts are maximised for the benefit of the taxpayer

Navy

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of Royal Navy personnel are assigned to the standing commitments of (a) Fleet Ready Escort/Towed Array Patrol Ships, (b) Marine Enforcement, (c) Mine Counter Measures (MCM) Support, (d) Antarctic Patrol, (e) Atlantic Patrol Tasking North, (f) Atlantic Patrol Tasking South, (g) Falkland Islands Patrol Task, (h) Gibraltar Squadron, (i) Joint Expeditionary Force (Maritime), (j) Gulf, (k) Standing NATO Response Force, (l) Royal Marines and Amphibious Capability and (m) Operation Atlanta; and what the liability shortfall is in each of those Standing Commitments.

Mike Penning: The Royal Navy (RN) has very capable ships and submarines delivering a strong and versatile presence, while deployed globally protecting our national interests. This week the RN has approximately 8,500 Sailors and Royal Marines preparing for operations or on operations with a number of ships, submarines and Units deployed.I am withholding further details of our Force structure as publication would, or would be likely to prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the Armed Forces.

Annington Homes

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much money his Department has paid to Annington in each year since 1996.

Mark Lancaster: The amount paid to Annington in each year since 1996-97 is shown in the following table: Financial YearAmount Paid (£million)  1996-9772.31997-98110.61998-99108.6199-2000109.72000-01115.82001-02119.92002-03128.92003-04130.22004-05135.92005-06140.82006-07146.12007-08151.82008-09162.22009-10159.72010-11167.12011-12172.52012-13174.32013-14176.92014-15176.12015-161822016-17 (to date)182.6

Military Bases: Gaming Machines

Luciana Berger: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many fruit machines are installed on each military estate managed by Sodexo.

Mark Lancaster: This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Defence Infrastructure Organisation: Recruitment

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 3.21 of the National Audit Office report, Delivering the defence estate, published on 15 November 2016, what steps he is taking to address the difficulties faced by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation in recruiting specialists needed to manage the defence estate and deliver the Footprint Strategy.

Mark Lancaster: The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is undertaking several initiatives to improve the recruitment of specialists. These include:A Strategic Resourcing Plan to tackle resourcing issues across DIO, including identifying how to address skills gaps.Developing a DIO Employer Value Proposition called "Why DIO?" to find out what really attracts and retains people within DIO.A "Quick guide to DIO" to raise awareness of DIO as an organisation to work for.Increasing use of social media to attract candidates to the most difficult to recruit areas.Implementing Apprenticeship and Graduate schemes against the top 10 'difficult to recruit' areas and core capabilities.A recruitment team to focus solely on these job families.Streamlining the recruitment process and undertaking allowance reviews and salary comparisons.Procuring specialist skill requirements through the supply chain.

Defence Infrastructure Organisation: Staff

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 3.23 of the National Audit Office report, Delivering the defence estate, published on 15 November 2016, what steps he is taking to address the challenges faced by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, including high levels of sickness and poor morale.

Mark Lancaster: The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is undertaking various measures to address sickness levels and improve staff morale, including:A staff engagement programme, including the “You Said, We did” Initiative.A cultural health assessment, drawn from the DIO cultural framework, to measure and target areas of ‘less healthy’ culture.Absence management workshops, and Support and guidance on the management of absence.The DIO results to the Civil Service Your Say Survey over the past three years show steadily improving levels of engagement, with the staff engagement index increasing from 57% in 2014 to 60% in 2016.

Ministry of Defence: Land

Mr Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.19 of the National Audit Office report, Delivering the defence estate, published on 15 November 2016, which essential re-provision facilities have been assessed as requiring Private Finance 2 funding.

Mark Lancaster: Our current assessment is that delivery of the Better Defence Estate Strategy requires £2 billion of additional financing over the next 10 years to enable reprovision investment.Financing options are under consideration and include potential Private Finance 2 funding. Specific investment plans to deliver reprovision requirements within the Better Defence Estate Strategy are at an early stage, and have not yet been considered in the context of specific facilities

Department for Work and Pensions

Social Security Benefits

Steve Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that all benefit applications are processed within five working days.

Damian Hinds: All claims for benefit are processed as quickly as possible and individual expectations on the number of days this takes is tailored across all our different products and services. We are now processing benefits more quickly and accurately with 90% of key out-of-work benefits processed within planned timescales in 2015/16. Where claimants are in urgent financial need and have claimed Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support, Employment and Support Allowance, Carers Allowance, Pension Credit and State Pension they can apply for an advance on their first benefit payment. This is called a Short Term Benefit Advance.

Work Capability Assessment

Kate Hollern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) efficiency of the work capability assessment.

Penny Mordaunt: The contract between DWP and Centre for Health Disability Assessment (CHDA), which carries out Work Capability Assessments, contains a range of quality performance indicators and targets that are monitored on an on-going basis. DWP also has an independent audit team that audits a statistically valid sample of CHDA assessments on a monthly basis.

Personal Independence Payment: Appeals

Jeremy Lefroy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many personal independence payment claims are awaiting mandatory reconsideration decisions; and what the (a) average and (b) longest recorded waiting time was for such a decision in the last year for which figures are available.

Penny Mordaunt: As at July 2016 there were 29,300 Personal Independence Payment Mandatory Reconsideration decisions outstanding. The information requested in respect of Mandatory Reconsideration waiting times is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Food Banks

Steve Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to conduct research into whether timely and accurate administration of benefits affects the level of use of food banks.

Damian Hinds: In the last five years we have made significant improvements in the service we provide and as a consequence benefits are paid faster than ever before; at the same time some food banks have reported increases in the amount of food supplies that they issue. Reasons for food bank use are complex and overlapping so it is misleading to link them to any one issue.

Social Security Benefits: Refuges

Mr David Lammy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance he has provided to local authorities on allocating discretionary housing payments to claimants accommodated within domestic violence refuges who have been notified that their benefit entitlement will reduce as a result of changes to the benefit cap.

Caroline Nokes: The departmental Discretionary Housing Payment Guidance Manual makes clear to Local authorities that they should ensure victims of domestic abuse receive the support they need. A link to the Guidance Manual is enclosed belowhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524321/discretionary-housing-payments-guide.pdf. Overall funding of £870 million has been committed for Discretionary Housing Payments over five years. As part of this, £150 million has been allocated for this financial year (2016/17) and £185 million will be allocated next year (2017/18).

Social Security Benefits: Refuges

Mr David Lammy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the recent reduction in the benefit cap on the time taken for specialist domestic abuse refuges to secure move-on accommodation for claimants whose benefit entitlements will decrease.

Caroline Nokes: Housing benefit paid to claimants in refuges designated as specified accommodation by a local authority is disregarded when deciding whether or not the benefit cap applies.

Housing Benefit

Mr David Lammy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the recent reduction in the benefit cap on the affordability of housing for claimants who have recently left refuge or temporary accommodation in the (a) social rented sector and (b) private rented sector.

Caroline Nokes: The lower benefit cap aims to build on the successful outcomes of the existing benefit cap and to strengthen work incentives. It also aims to impose a reasonable limit on the total amount of benefits that a household can receive, with the aim of promoting fairness for taxpayers and fairness between those on benefits and those in working households. The Government believes that those who are on benefits and not in work should have to make the same choices as those in work about the size of their family and where they can afford to live. To help ensure Local Authorities are able to protect the most vulnerable housing benefit claimants and to support households adjusting to reforms, the government will provide £870 million funding for the Discretionary Housing Payments scheme over the next 5 years from 2016/17.

Department for Work and Pensions: Sick Leave

Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in his Department in each of the last three years.

Caroline Nokes: The total number of working days lost in DWP due to mental illness in each of the last three years is set out in the table below. DWP is committed to improving mental ill health. We support employees through access to comprehensive stress risk assessments, Occupational Health services and our Employee Assistance Programme which offers immediate telephone support 24 hours a day, every day. DWP is currently introducing Mental Health First Aid to further add to the support available. DWP has greatly reduced sickness absence from an average of 11.1 days in March 2007 to 6.13 days currently. The Department has the lowest average working days lost across Government when compared against other Departments of its size and grade structure.  PeriodWorking Days Lost to mental illnessWorking Days AvailableWorking Days Lost as a % of Working Days Available01 November 2015 to 31 October 2016114,88716,933,2340.68%01 November 2014 to 31 October 2015103,59616,288,9090.64%01 November 2013 to 31 October 2014121,51317,558,2670.69%

Members: Correspondence

Alison Thewliss: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central of 25 October 2016, requesting that the Government's consultation on tax credit payments be extended.

Caroline Nokes: My Noble Friend the Minister for Welfare Reform (Lord Freud) replied to the hon. Member on 18 November 2016.

Personal Independence Payment: Chronic Illnesses

Valerie Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to end the requirement for re-assessments for those with long-term medical conditions who are receiving personal independence payments.

Penny Mordaunt: Personal Independence Payment (PIP) already recognises that for the most severely disabled claimants, the award review process could seem unnecessarily intrusive. The length of a PIP award is based on an individual’s circumstances and can vary from nine months to an on-going award with a light touch review at the 10 year point. As such, existing PIP claimants with the most severe, lifetime disabilities, whose functional ability has remained the same, are more likely to have their evidence reviewed by a DWP Decision-Maker and will not need to have another face-to-face assessment with a healthcare professional. Regular reviews for PIP claimants are a key feature of the benefit, and ensure that benefit payments accurately match the current needs of claimants. We will continue to engage with stakeholders to improve the service we provide. We are committed to ensuring that the review process works effectively across the spectrum of disabilities and health conditions.

Employment and Support Allowance

Peter Aldous: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what funding the Government has in place to provide personal support packages for disabled people in the employment and support allowance work-related activity group; and whether such support is voluntary for disabled people.

Penny Mordaunt: As announced in the Green Paper, we are putting in place a Personal Support Package to support those on ESA Work-Related Activity Component and UC Limited Capability for Work element. We have allocated a total of £330m for new, voluntary support for people with limited capability for work, over four years starting from April 2017. This will provide support for new ESA/UC claimants with limited capability for work, helping them to move closer to the labour market and, when they are ready, move into work.

Employment Schemes: Disability

Peter Aldous: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether disabled people will have access to voluntary, specialised and personal employment support during and after the transition from the Work Choice and Work Programme to the Work and Health Programme.

Penny Mordaunt: The Work and Health Programme is only one part of the wider package of support for disabled people. ‘Improving Lives, The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper’ published on 31 October, confirms we will introduce a new Personal Support Package for people with health conditions and disabilities, with a range of new interventions and initiatives designed to provide support that is tailored to the individual needs of claimants. The Spending Review announced funding rising to at least £130 million a year by 2019/20 for the new Work and Health programme, including funding to be devolved to Scotland, focussing support on people with a disability, early access for priority groups and the long term unemployed. We expect the majority of people who will start the programme will be disabled people and they will be able to volunteer to join the programme at any time. Our current assumption is that participants provided support on existing programmes will continue to be supported on that programme and will not transfer to the Work and Health Programme, although no decision has yet been made. The Work and Health Programme will launch in 2017 following the end of referrals to the Work Programme and Work Choice.

Food Banks

Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of people who have used food banks in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK in each year from 2010 to 2015.

Damian Hinds: The Department does not hold information on the number of people who use food banks

State Retirement Pensions: Females

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he last met representatives from the Women Against State Pension Increase campaign.

Richard Harrington: I am responding on behalf of the Secretary of State, as the Minister for Pensions I have responsibility for this issue.The previous Minister for Pensions, Baroness Altmann, and Shailesh Vara, the then Under-Secretary of State, met with representatives of WASPI on 29th June 2016 to listen to their concerns.In addition, the Secretary of State and I are due to meet representatives of the relevant All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) shortly.

State Retirement Pensions: Females

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the Government will review its policy on transitional arrangements to address the effects on women born in the 1950s following state pension equalisation.

Richard Harrington: The Government already made a concession worth £1.1 billion that will reduce the impact of these increases on those women most affected by them.No further moves will be made to assist those women, all of whom will benefit in time from the new state pension.

Food Banks

Tracy Brabin: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of collating official statistics on (a) the number of foodbanks in the UK, (b) dependency on foodbanks, (c) use of foodbanks and (d) foodbank referral causes; and if he will make a statement.

Damian Hinds: Food banks range from small, local provision, through to national networks. It would not be possible to collect this information without placing unnecessary burdens on volunteers trying to help their communities.

Employment: Mental Illness

Marcus Fysh: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that people with mental health conditions are properly supported into work.

Penny Mordaunt: We are investing significant resources in this area including increasing the coverage of the Talking Therapy services by 600,000 people per year to 1.5million by 2020. We are also investing in trials and initiatives with a view to taking forward those that work best for individuals. Mental Health is a key feature of our Green Paper Improving Lives published on 31 October 2016.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Dog Licences: Fees and Charges

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will bring forward proposals to reduce the disparities between local authorities in the cost of dog breeding licences.

George Eustice: The power for local authorities to set fees for dog breeding licences enables them to recover the costs of administering the licensing scheme. Costs vary across different local authorities depending on a number of factors. Defra consulted on changes to the regulations on the breeding and sale of dogs earlier this year. There was no proposal to restrict local authority fees in relation to dog breeding licences but we are working with local government to establish practical and workable guidance in this area. The Government has published a summary of replies to the consultation and the final proposals will be published in due course.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Public Expenditure

Mrs Madeleine Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of 18 October 2016, Official Report, 299WH, in which areas her Department has increased spending in the last six years; and if she will make a statement.

Dr Thérèse Coffey: The attached table sets out departmental spending by area from 2010/11 to 2015/16. 



PQ52603 - table
(PDF Document, 81.82 KB)

Avian Influenza

Sir Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what advice her Department (a) has issued and (b) is planning to issue to minimise the risk of an outbreak of avian flu in the winter of 2016-17; what other steps she is taking to minimise the risk of such an outbreak; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice: The Government is well prepared and has a strong track record of controlling avian influenza outbreaks. Since 2014 there have been four confirmed cases in the UK, all of which have been limited to single premises. A detailed control strategy for notifiable avian diseases is published on GOV.UK. Regular assessments detailing the potential risk of avian influenza incursions to the UK following confirmed cases in Europe have also been published, which contain further biosecurity advice for keepers and encourage vigilance and reporting suspicion of disease. This complements biosecurity advice for poultry keepers which is always available on GOV.UK and which is updated when required. Defra is also working closely with representatives of the egg and poultry industry to monitor and review the risks of a disease outbreak and communicate that to keepers and is participating in the eleven poultry industry regional biosecurity roadshows taking place around the UK.

Flood Control

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding her Department has allocated specifically for natural flood management projects; what proportion of the additional funding referred to in paragraphs 1.242 and 1.301 Budget 2016, HC 901, for flood risk management has been allocated to natural flood management projects; and which Department will have lead responsibility for the dispersal of that funding.

Dr Thérèse Coffey: Between 2009 and 2015 Defra and the Environment Agency contributed some £4.1m to natural flood management demonstration projects at Holnicote (Somerset), Pickering (North Yorks) and Upper Derwent (Derbyshire). In addition, natural flood management measures are integral to many wider Flood and Coastal Risk Management schemes. Defra has the lead responsibility for the £2.5bn committed to the Flood and Coastal Risk Management Capital programme, which includes the £150m announced in the 2016 Budget to be invested in flood defence schemes in Leeds, Cumbria, Calder Valley and York, which will better protect 7,400 properties. Defra Grant-in-Aid for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Capital projects is available for any project that meets the objectives of reducing flooding or erosion risk based on the economic benefits and damages avoided. Payment rates are based on outcomes not methods, an approach designed to avoid discriminating against any particular approach to reducing risk. Defra delegates the dispersal of this grant to the Environment Agency, with oversight from the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees. Whilst there is no funding yet allocated from the 2016 Budget announcement specifically for Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects, both the Cumbria and Calderdale Flood Action Plans include actions to explore how to manage the landscape to slow the flow of water using NFM solutions, including, for example, peatland and bogland restoration, tree planting and woody dams.

Climate Change

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the potential cost to the UK economy of a changing climate over the next 20 years; and if she will make a statement.

Dr Thérèse Coffey: Defra has not undertaken a quantitative assessment of the economic impact of climate change for the UK. The Government is committed to understanding and tackling the risks and opportunities of climate change for the UK. We will publish our second Climate Change Risk Assessment in January next year. The underpinning evidence report compiled by the Adaptation Sub-Committee to the Committee on Climate Change was published in July this year. The assessment of the urgency of climate risks includes consideration of the current and potential costs of impacts to the UK where that information exists.

Agriculture: Subsidies

Conor McGinn: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much the UK paid to the European Commission on disallowance penalties for Common Agricultural Policy payments which did not comply with regulations in each year since 2010.

George Eustice: As from financial year 2010/11 Defra has accrued £402m for disallowance following the conclusion of EU audits, broken down by financial year as shown in the table below. This relates to a number of different Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Schemes over a number of historical scheme years as disallowance is paid in arrears. Disallowance (*) £m2010/112011/122012/132013/142014/152015/16181422308166(*) Reflects the sums the European Commission have ruled cannot be reimbursed (i.e. the amounts they have “disallowed”).

Home Office

Asylum: EU Law

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications have been transferred from other EU member states to the UK under the Dublin regulations in each year from 2010 to 2016; and how many cases resulting from such applications have been completed in each of those years.

Steve McCabe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 10 October 2016 to Question 46261, on asylum: EU law, how long she expects it will take her Department to prepare the information requested.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Holding answer received on 10 October 2016



We will always fully consider cases passed to us under the Dublin Regulation, and have made significant progress in improving and speeding up the existing processes via Dublin especially since the beginning of the year.Any request to unite family members under the Dublin Regulation is carefully considered. Where someone seeking asylum elsewhere in the EU can demonstrate they have close family members legally in the UK, we will take responsibility for that claim. At present we do not publish data on cases covered by the Dublin Regulation.The latest release of published data on asylum can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-august-2016

Visas: Research

Royston Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on issuing visas for overseas academies to participate in research at UK institutions (a) during negotiations on the UK leaving the EU and (b) once the UK has exited the EU.

Mr Robert Goodwill: There will be no immediate changes to the immigration status of foreign students or the way universities are able to recruit students. While the UK remains in the EU, European Economic Area and Swiss students will continue to have the same rights and status they had before the referendum. The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living and working in the UK, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if British citizens' rights in other EU Member States were not protected in return.The precise way in which the Government will control the movement of EU nationals, including students, to the UK after the UK has left the EU is yet to be determined and will be subject to the wider negotiations on the UK's exit from the EU.

Human Trafficking

Lady Hermon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of victims of human trafficking rescued in the UK during 2016 have been allowed to remain in the UK; and if she will make a statement.

Mr Robert Goodwill: All potential victims of modern slavery are eligible for support through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), but not all of those confirmed as victims of modern slavery will require permission to remain in the UK. Some potential victims are British Citizens, others will already have valid leave to remain in the UK or will be EEA nationals exercising Treaty Rights. Many victims who do not have an automatic or pre-existing right to remain in the UK also claim asylum.Some of them will be granted leave to remain if eligible for international protection. Where appropriate, confirmed victims of modern slavery can also be considered for a grant of Discretionary Leave to remain in the UK based on the particular circumstances of the individual case. This can include needing to stay in the UK in order to pursue a claim for compensation against their traffickers or the need to assist with police enquiries. An overall figure for the proportion of confirmed victims of modern slavery allowed to remain in the UK could only be provided at disproportionate cost by examination of individual records.

Compass Contracts: Vetting

Anne McLaughlin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answers of 19 October 2016 to Questions 48326 to 48331, which are the limited number of sensitive roles referred to in that Answer; what level of DBS check is required for those roles; and what criteria or guidance her Department has issued for ensuring appropriate risk assessments are carried out by its Compass providers.

Mr Robert Goodwill: It is the responsibility of the COMPASS providers to undertake the appropriate pre-employment checks and risk assessments in accordance with their legal and contractual obligations (as set out in Section 1.2 of the Statement of Requirements and Schedule 9 of the Terms and Conditions). It is not possible to list a specific set of COMPASS roles requiring criminal records checks as job roles will vary from one COMPASS provider to another. All COMPASS roles which include contact with service users will be subject to an appropriate level of criminal records check depending on the specifics of the role.Individuals without the appropriate clearance, conduct, skills or qualifications for their role should not be on COMPASS service provision. Providers are monitored closely to ensure that they undertake appropriate risk assessments in relation to their employees and that there is no risk posed to service users. For criminal records checks, the Disclosure and Barring Service publishes details and guidance for employers on eligibility and levels of clearance required for roles that may be deemed as sensitive as a result of working with children and adults. This can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dbs-eligibility-guidance

Visas: Overseas Students

Paul Blomfield: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many investigations have been undertaken in each of the last 12 months into UK Visas and Immigration officials failing to carry out Tier 4 interviews fairly and consistently; and what action was taken on each such occasion.

Mr Robert Goodwill: The information requested on investigations is not held centrally and is only available at disproportionate cost.All decisions to refuse students on the basis of an interview can be appealed under the Administrative Review process and by an independent decision-maker. UK Visas and Immigration also have a specialist international assurance function that will review decisions on Tier 4 applications.

Refugees: Syria

Ann Clwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent meetings have been held between Ministers and their counterparts in the Welsh Government on plans for Syrian resettlement in Wales; and if the Government plans to publish the minutes of such meetings.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government's practice to provide details of all such meetings.

Immigration: EU Nationals

Ian Murray: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will grant existing EU national university staff and students leave to remain in the UK in advance of Article 50 being triggered.

Mr Robert Goodwill: While the UK remains in the EU, EU national university staff and students will continue to have the same rights and status that they had before the referendum. The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living and working in the UK after the UK leaves the EU, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if British citizens' rights in other EU Member States were not protected in return.The Government has provided repeated assurances on this point. It has also been clear that the timeframe for resolving this issue is through an agreement with the EU to ensure fair treatment of British citizens living in other EU countries.

Visas

Diana Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) student visitor visas and (b) visitor visas for academics were (i) applied for and (ii) turned down in each year since 2009-10.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Information on applications for, and refusals of, short term study (previously referred to as 'student visitor') visas and for total visitor visas (which include academics using visitor visas) is published in table vi_01_q (Visa data tables volume 1) in 'Immigration Statistics, April-June 2016', available from the Home Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2016/list-of-tables#visas

Overseas Students: English Language

Martyn Day: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with the governments of home countries of international students who were detained or deported from the UK following allegations of committing fraud in English language tests.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Where governments make representations on behalf of their nationals, the Home Office will consider these and explain the UK government's wider response to instances of fraud identified in the English language testing process previously operated by Educational Testing Service.

Overseas Students: English Language

Martyn Day: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will introduce a right to appeal from the UK for international students alleged to have fraudulently obtained English language test certificates.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Following the changes introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 there is only a right of appeal where fundamental rights are engaged - where a protection claim is refused, where protection status is revoked or where a human rights claim is refused. There is also a right of appeal against decisions under the EEA Regulations and there is an appeal right against a decision to deprive someone of citizenship. For Tier 4 students, this came into effect for applications made on or after 20 October 2014.For applications made prior to 20 October 2014, where the person had leave to remain in the UK and at the time of the decision to refuse would have no leave left, the right of appeal was exercised from within the UK. Where the decision appealed against was a removal decision, and human rights had not been raised, that right was exercised from overseas; the Court of Appeal has consistently upheld that the availability of an out of country appeal in respect of a relevant decision in an ETS case is an adequate remedy.

Police Custody: Death

Fiona Mactaggart: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many deaths occurred in police custody suites in the last 12 months; and who managed the suites in which those deaths occurred.

Brandon Lewis: Annual statistics on deaths during or following police contact are published by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). The latest statistics, which were published on 26 July 2016, show that there were 14 deaths in police custody across England and Wales over the 2015/16 period. The number is down from 17 deaths the previous year.The Department does not hold information on the management of police custody suites, which is a matter for chief officers.See link to IPCC publication for full details.https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/research_stats/Deaths_Report_1516.pdf

Fireworks: Sales

Andrew Stephenson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent representations she has received on banning the public sale of fireworks.

Brandon Lewis: We have not received any representations about banning the sale of consumer fireworks.Under the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2015, which are the responsibility of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and enforced by local Trading Standards, fireworks can be bought only from retailers for consumer use on these dates:• 15 October to 10 November• 26 to 31 December• 3 days before Diwali and Chinese New YearAt other times, they can only be bought from licensed retailers.

Passports

Cat Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on advertising the Collective Passport Service in each of the last 10 years.

Mr Robert Goodwill: Her Majesty's Passport Office has not spent any money specifically advertising the Collective (group) passports service over the last 10 years. Guidance for applying for this service can be found on www.gov.uk.

Missing Persons: Females

Liz Saville Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many women and girls who were reported missing between 1998 and 2005 are still the subject of ongoing investigations.

Sarah Newton: This information is held by individual police forces.Between 1998 and 2005, the Metropolitan Police Service was responsible for the Missing Persons Bureau, but did not publish reports detailing the number of missing cases. The National Crime Agency is now responsible for the Missing Persons Bureau and publishes annual statistics on missing persons, which includes statistics on missing people by gender and age. This is available here: http://missingpersons.police.uk

Asylum

Jim McMahon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers there are in each local authority area.

Mr Robert Goodwill: The Home Office publishes quarterly figures on the number of asylum seekers housed in dispersed accommodation by local authority in the Immigration Statistics release, in table as_16q in volume 4 of the Asylum data tables.These figures do not include those asylum seekers who do not receive Home Office support and who either accommodate themselves or stay with family and friends.

Police: Offences against Children

Ann Clwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to disallow the Police Federation from funding appeals to convictions made by former police officers on charges of historic child sex abuse.

Brandon Lewis: The Government is strengthening the Police Federation’s accountability for its actions through provisions in the Policing and Crime Bill currently before Parliament. This includes a revised core purpose with a requirement for the Federation to protect the public interest in fulfilling its duty to represent members of police forces in all matters affecting their welfare and efficiency.It is for the Police Federation to decide the appropriate legal assistance that it offers to its members, who fund the Federation through subscriptions.

Police: Misconduct

Ann Clwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing an independent inquiry into alleged police malpractice in Scotland and Wales during the 1984-85 Miners' Strike.

Brandon Lewis: There are no plans to establish an independent inquiry into alleged police malpractice during the miners’ strike in Scotland and Wales during 1984-85.

South Yorkshire Police

Ann Clwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department assessed the evidence held by South Yorkshire Police on its operations at Orgreave during the Miners' Strike in 1984 before making a decision on whether to hold an inquiry into events at Orgreave.

Brandon Lewis: The Home Office did not review files or assess evidence held by South Yorkshire Police.

Tickets: Touting

Diana Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will use her powers under subsections 6 to 8 of section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to outlaw ticket touting for (a) events related to Hull City of Culture 2017, (b) musical events and (c) cultural events.

Brandon Lewis: The Home Secretary has no current plans to modify Section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

Entry Clearances: Overseas Students

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many students detained under section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act (1999) had their visas revoked as a result of investigations into the Test of English for International Communication operations of Educational Testing Services.

Mr Robert Goodwill: We do not hold this information in a format that allows us to provide the information by the provision of the Immigration Rules under which people were present in the UK. To answer this question would require individual analysis of all ETS related case files.We continue to release information as part of our Transparency Data and more than 1,400 people were served removal notices in connection with ETS (including those whose leave was revoked) and were detained.

Entry Clearances: Overseas Students

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many students have submitted appeals from (a) inside the UK and (b) outside the UK after revocation of their visas as a result of investigations into the Test of English for International Communication operations of Educational Testing Services.

Mr Robert Goodwill: We do not hold the data in a format that would allow us to provide the information requested. All data relating to Educational Training Services (ETS) is published in the UKVI Transparancy Data, please see link aside:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/temporary-and-permanent-migration-data-august-2016

Home Office: ICT

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of her Department's digital and IT projects are (a) under review and (b) subject to probable cancellation.

Sarah Newton: The Department's portfolio of digital and technology projects is subject to rolling review against government priorities and funding availability. Projects are also subject to regular assurance reviews as part of corporate governance. We have no current plans to cancel specific projects.

Police Community Support Officers: North Wales

Ian C. Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police community support officers were employed by North Wales Police in each year since 2010.

Ian C. Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers were employed by North Wales Police in each year since 2010.

Brandon Lewis: The Home Office collects and publishes data biannually on the number of police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) employed by each police force. These data can be found in the 'Police Workforce, England and Wales' statistical bulletins. The latest statistics, representing the picture as at 31 March 2016, can be found here:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales

Violence against Women and Girls Ministerial Group

Dr Rupa Huq: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Inter-Ministerial Group of Violence Against Women and Girls next plans to meet.

Sarah Newton: The Violence Against Women and Girls Inter Ministerial Group meets on a quarterly basis. Future meeting dates have been arranged and the next meeting is timetabled for early in 2017.

Passports

Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 9 November 2016 to Question 47644, on passports, for what reasons that Answer refers neither to legal or financial obstacles; and whether her Department has made an assessment of such potential obstacles.

Mr Robert Goodwill: No decisions have been made about the future of the UK passport and so no formal assessments have been made on any aspects of any potential changes.Parliament will be informed in due course about any changes to the UK passport.

Travel Restrictions: Russia

Mr Dominic Raab: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Dimitry Klyuev, Pavel Karpov or Andrey Pavlov have been issued with UK travel bans at any point in the last eight years.

Mr Robert Goodwill: We have a long established practice of not routinely commenting on individual immigration cases.

Entry Clearances: Overseas Students

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what costs have been incurred by her Department in responding to (a) out-of-country and (b) in-country appeals for students who sat the Test of English for International Communication and who had their visas revoked.

Mr Robert Goodwill: It is not possible to differentiate Educational Testing Service (ETS) specific appeal costs because Home Office data systems are unable to disaggregate the exact reasons why people about whom we were notified of an invalid or questionable ETS certificate may be appealing.

Scotland Office

Public Expenditure: Scotland

Dr Paul Monaghan: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on future funding for the Scottish Government.

David Mundell: I have regular discussions with my cabinet colleagues, including the Chancellor, on a wide range of issues.In February, the Scottish Government and the United Kingdom Government signed the agreement on the Scottish Government’s fiscal framework.As set out in the Smith Agreement, changes in the Scottish Government’s block grant will continue to be determined via the operation of the Barnett Formula.

Scotland Office: Sick Leave

Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in his Department in each of the last three years.

David Mundell: The Scotland Office does not employ staff directly; all staff that join, do so on an assignment, loan or secondment from other government bodies, mainly the Scottish Government and the Ministry of Justice, who remain the employers. These Departments have their own absence management policies and recording processes that apply to those of their staff working in the office. Detailed reasons for absence attributable to mental illness and other sick absence is not retained by the Scotland Office.

HM Treasury

Incentives

Steve McCabe: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2016 to Question 46911, on incentives, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that firms are complying with the policies outlined in that Answer.

Simon Kirby: Policies referred to in my previous answer were enacted through legislation which empowered the UK’s independent regulators, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority, to monitor and supervise financial services firms. Rules on remuneration are set out in the UK regulators’ rulebooks and the regulators ensure that FS firms are compliant with these through regular monitoring including a detailed annual review of the largest firms’ remuneration policies and practices.

Taxation: Imports

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the Government's strategy is for reducing the tax gap on import taxes, levies and VAT.

Jane Ellison: HMRC’s Compliance Strategy for tackling non-compliance in all taxes and duties is ‘promote, prevent, respond’. For non-compliance relating to VAT and duties on imports HMRC operates a range of compliance responses to tackle the problems of undervaluation and misdescription of imported goods, as well as the non-payment of VAT on the subsequent sale of those goods. HMRC also operates in partnership with UK Border Force.

Import Duties

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the tax gap for customs duties on goods imported from outside the EU.

Jane Ellison: HM Revenue and Customs has not estimated a tax gap for customs duties on goods imported from outside of the EU.

Taxation: Imports

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether there is a memorandum of understanding or other form of agreement between HM Revenue and Customs and the Home Office for securing the collection of and compliance with import taxation.

Jane Ellison: There is a Partnership Agreement which sets out the collaborative working arrangements between HM Revenue and Customs and the Home Office in respect of Border Force. Border Force is an operational command within the Home Office responsible for frontline operations at the border. These frontline operations include the collection and protection of revenue from the importation of goods. The Partnership Agreement is published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/partnership-agreement-between-hmrc-and-border-force.

Customs

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress has been made on the replacement of the Customs CHIEF system; and when that replacement is expected to be introduced.

Jane Ellison: The replacement of the current CHIEF system is progressing well, and in line with the HM Revenue and Customs Programme Delivery Plans. Full implementation of the new Customs Declaration Service is planned for January 2019.

VAT: Imports

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the tax gap for import VAT.

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the tax gap for import duties.

Jane Ellison: HM Revenue and Customs does not make separate estimates of the tax gap for import VAT and customs duties. The most recent tax gap estimates are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps

Tobacco: Taxation

Simon Hart: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he plans to publish draft legislation on introducing a minimum tobacco tax to tackle the growth of cheaper cigarettes and protect revenues.

Jane Ellison: Draft legislation for the Minimum Excise Tax will be published on 5 December alongside other draft Finance Bill clauses.

Customs: ICT

Charlie Elphicke: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential contribution of the system due to replace Customs CHIEF to a more-intelligence led, frictionless border.

Jane Ellison: The controlled physical release of goods at UK ports is an essential part of the future Customs operational model. To support this model the new Customs Declaration Service will incorporate a fully automated risk assessment tool using intelligence driven information to target illicit freight movements. This approach will minimise the administrative burdens at the border for the majority of compliant imports and exports.

Concentrix

Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when his Department concluded its agreement with Concentrix to end the contract with that company to administer tax credits on behalf of HM Revenue and Customs; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison: HM Revenue and Customs and Concentrix concluded the final terms of the mutually agreed decision to terminate the contract on Friday 11th November 2016.

Treasury: Sick Leave

Norman Lamb: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in his Department in each of the last three years.

Simon Kirby: Details of sickness absence for Mental and Behavioural disorders in HM Treasury can be found in the HM Treasury published Annual report and Accounts. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-annual-report

Lloyds Banking Group

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the timetable is for offering the retail sale of Lloyds Banking Group shares to the public in 2016-17.

Simon Kirby: On 7 October the Chancellor announced that the Government would begin to sell its remaining stake in Lloyds via a trading plan, withdrawing the retail sale. Retail investors, like any other investor, will be able to buy shares in Lloyds by purchasing shares via a stockbroker.

PAYE

Mr Gregory Campbell: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an estimate of the potential annual administrative savings resulting from a decision to combine national insurance and income tax deductions for those on PAYE.

Jane Ellison: Reliable estimates are not available of the potential annual administrative impact resulting from a decision to combine national insurance and income tax deductions for those on PAYE. The Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) recently published a report, on 14 November, regarding closer alignment of income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs). Whilst the OTS did not produce cost estimates, their report highlighted a number of areas that would impact on the administrative burdens for HM Revenue and Customs as a result of combining deductions for NICs and income tax. This is summarised in paragraph 2.100 of the OTS publication, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/567491/OTS_report_web_final.pdf.

Employment Agencies: Tax Avoidance

Frank Field: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to investigate how much national insurance has been lost through avoidance methods used by temporary recruitment agencies.

Jane Ellison: These schemes are under investigation by HM Revenue and Customs. Penalties are in place for those caught attempting to avoid tax by using an avoidance scheme. This includes promoters of such schemes who can face fines of up to £1 million for failing to notify an avoidance scheme under the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes regime.

Taxation: Self-assessment

Rob Marris: To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many businesses have used Your Tax Account for online tax services since it was introduced.

Jane Ellison: 2.7 million businesses accessed their Business Tax Account (formerly Your Tax Account) at least once between January 2016 and October 2016. Over the past 12 months, it is estimated that 3.2 million businesses have used their tax account. Figures for earlier periods are not available.

Cabinet Office

Liver Diseases: Death

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many deaths were caused by alcoholic liver disease in each of the last five years.

Chris Skidmore: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.



UKSA Response to PQ52573
(PDF Document, 76.43 KB)

Gulf Strategy Unit

Diana Johnson: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2016 to Question 47797, whether the Gulf Strategy Integrated Delivery Team's remit includes co-ordinating the Government's strategic policy on the size of the UK's permanent military presence in the Gulf states.

Ben Gummer: The Gulf Strategy Integrated Delivery Team is not responsible for coordinating policy relating to Britain’s permanent military presence in the Gulf States. This is a Ministry of Defence responsibility.

Department for International Trade

Trade Agreements: Heathrow Airport

Mr Jamie Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what assessment has been made of the effect of Heathrow Airport expansion on negotiating future trade agreements.

Greg Hands: Ministers and officials in the Department for International Trade are working closely with counterparts across a wide range of countries and markets, in order to promote the UK as a great place to do business and with which to trade. We are taking advantage of all the opportunities available to us to ensure that Britain becomes the global leader in free trade once we leave the EU.It is expected that in 2040 alone, businesses from all over the UK will make an extra 6 million trips through an expanded Heathrow. Making use of this greater international connectivity would help boost trade and productivity, and the UK economy. Not only will greater connectivity enable business travel, the significant increase in flights, especially to long haul destinations, represents a big increase in the capacity available to the air freight industry, helping to lower costs and increase trade.

Department for International Trade: Staff

Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to the Answer of 17 October 2016 to Question 46932, how many current (a) staff and (b) officials in his Department have responsibilities relating to the conduct of trade negotiations; and how many such categories of people he plans to have in post with those responsibilities by March 2017.

Greg Hands: I refer the hon Member for Ochil and South Perthshire to the answer I gave to the hon Member for Bristol West 13 October 2016, UIN: 46432.

Iron and Steel: China

Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if he will make an (a) assessment of the extent of the avoidance of duties on Chinese steel via its importation into the EU through (i) Russia, (ii) Vietnam and (iii) other countries and (b) estimate of the potential cost of such avoidance to the UK steel industry.

Greg Hands: Whilst the UK is part of the European Union, trade defence is an EU competence. My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade would encourage industry to present any prima facie evidence of circumvention of anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures to the European Commission. Where evidence is sufficient to justify an investigation the Commission will do so and present any proposals for imposing or extending duties to Member States.

Iron and Steel: China

Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether he has had discussions with the EU Anti-Fraud Office on alleged attempts by Chinese companies to avoid duties on Chinese-made steel by importing such steel through non-EU countries.

Greg Hands: My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has not had any discussions with the EU Anti-Fraud Office on this issue and the Department has not been made aware of allegations or presented with any evidence of this activity in its regular contact with the steel industry.

Exports: Swindon

Justin Tomlinson: To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what the value of exports emanating from Swindon was in each year since 2010.

Mark Garnier: Data relating to the geographical area including Swindon are published as per below: a) Swindon Growth Hub - These figures cover trade in goods only for 2015. The Swindon Growth Hub is defined as an area that incorporates all of SN and BA postcodes – see attached spreadsheet, taken from the link below:https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/Pages/FreedomofInformation.aspxSource: HM Revenue and Customs. b) HMRC Regional Trade Statistics database – These figures cover trade in goods only since 1996. Data are available for the Government Region South West and all other Government Regions:https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/RTS/Pages/default.aspxSource: HM Revenue and Customs. c) ONS Regionalised Estimates of UK Services Exports – These are experimental statistics covering trade in services during 2011-2014. These data are on a different basis than the HMRC data in (a) and (b) above. Data are available for the Government Region South West and all other Government Regions – see attached spreadsheet, taken from the link below:http://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/internationaltrade/articles/estimatingthevalueofserviceexportsabroadfromdifferentpartsoftheuk/2011to2014/relateddataSource: Office for National Statistics

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Broadband

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the economic effect of black spots in high-speed broadband coverage; and if she will make a statement.

Matt Hancock: The Department of Culture, Media and Sport commissioned an assessment of the impact of superfast broadband in 2013 by SQW; the report concluded that there was significant economic value to the UK from access to superfast broadband. The full report can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-broadband-impact-study--2

House of Commons Commission

Parliament: Work Experience

John Mann: To ask the Rt. hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, how many interns' passes are currently issued in Parliament.

Tom Brake: Holding answer received on 16 November 2016



The Pass Office database currently shows:198 current valid passes issued to interns sponsored by Members of Parliament.16 current valid passes issued to interns sponsored by Members of the House of Lords4 current valid passes issued to interns sponsored by the House of Commons Administration1 current valid pass issued to an intern sponsored by the Parliamentary Research Service.4 current valid passes issued to interns sponsored by the Parliamentary Research Unit.Interns in the House of Commons Administration undertake paid placements that offer the person some experience in the workplace. These often take place while the person is studying. The House of Commons Administration is not responsible for the terms and conditions of internships organised by individual Members of Parliament.The House of Lords Administration does not employ interns, and has no plans to do so, nor is it responsible for the terms and conditions of internships organised by individual Members of the House.

House of Lords: Location

John Mann: To ask the Rt. hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the options for the temporary relocation of the House of Lords during the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster with the membership of that House (a) remaining at current levels and (b) decreasing by 2022.

John Mann: To ask the Rt. hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, what estimate the Commission has made of the (a) size of the chamber and (b) office capacity needed for the (i) House of Commons and (ii) House of Lords when Parliament is temporarily relocated during the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.

Tom Brake: The House of Commons Commission has not made any assessment of the size of the chambers and office capacity needed for both Houses if Parliament is temporarily relocated during the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. The Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster considered various options for temporary accommodation for both Houses, which are outlined in its Report (First Report of Session 2016–17, HC 659).The Committee recommended that the general floor space and layout of the two Chambers should be replicated as far as possible in any temporary accommodation, and that office accommodation should provide the same number of desks for members of both Houses as are currently provided in the Palace. The House of Commons Commission has no responsibility for estimating the future size of the House of Lords.

Northern Ireland Office

Northern Ireland Office: Sick Leave

Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many working days were lost due to mental illness in his Department in each of the last three years.

Kris Hopkins: The total working days lost in my Department in each of the last three years due to mental health related sickness absence is shown below: Financial YearTotal days lost2015 – 20163732014 – 20153252013 – 2014100

Department of Health

Social Services

Teresa Pearce: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the future level of demand for social care; and what steps he is taking to ensure that that level of demand can be met.

Teresa Pearce: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the funding gap in social care on the adequate provision of appropriate social care.

David Mowat: Social care continues to be a key priority for the Government. The Spending Review as a whole looked at the pressures on local government over the Spending Review period and particular attention was paid to adult social care services. Spending Review decisions on social care services took into account a range of financial and economic factors, including independent academic modelling of future demand for services. As a result of the Spending Review announced in November 2015, the Government is giving local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion of new support for social care by 2019/20. This should mean local government has access to the funding to increase social care spending in real terms by the end of the Parliament. In addition the current Relative Needs Formula does take into account demographics and seeks to measure need for state-funded care, and thus takes into account population need, the proportion of the population who are below the income and wealth means test threshold and the level of informal care support available. The Department has commissioned a review of the formulae that we use for the Relative Needs Formula. This review is so that we can incorporate more recent and detailed data and statistical techniques. The researchers are currently writing up the research and this will be published in due course.

Social Services: Staff

Teresa Pearce: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on the number of social care workers over the next five years.

David Mowat: The Department of Health is engaged with colleagues in the Department for Exiting the European Union to ensure that the needs of social care providers and those in ineed of social care services are taken into account as we exit from the EU.The Government has made clear it wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return.The Department is aware that our challenge, working alongside stakeholders in the adult social care sector, is to ensure the workforce has the right number of people to meet increasing demands, with the right skills, knowledge and behaviours to deliver quality, compassionate care.

Benzodiazepines

Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost has been to the NHS of purchasing benzodiazepine in each of the last 10 years.

David Mowat: The cost to the National Health Service of benzodiazepine drugs1 prescribed and dispensed to patients in England is shown in the table. YearPrimary care net ingredient cost2 £kSecondary care cost3 £kTotal cost £k200524,633.25,491.330,124.5200633,367.96,007.939,375.8200746,557.36,789.553,346.8200852,839.36,879.359,718.6200955,000.96,072.461,073.3201057,160.85,353.962,514.7201146,968.05,069.952,037.9201244,828.65,831.650,660.1201381,221.76,799.188,020.7201466,409.47,273.173,682.6201555,886.67,423.863,310.5Source: Prescription Cost Analysis and Hospital Pharmacy Audit Index © IMS HEALTH 2016 provided by NHS Digital1 Includes alprazolam, chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride, clobazam, clonazepam, diazepam, flurazepam hydrochloride, loprazolam mesilate, lorazepam, lormetazepam, midazolam hydrochloride, midazolam maleate, nitrazepam, oxazepam, temazepam.2 Net ingredient cost is the basic cost of a drug. It does not take account of discounts, dispensing costs, fees or prescription charge income.3 The cost of the medicines at NHS list price and not necessarily the price the hospital paid. May include drugs dispensed via hospital pharmacies to private patients in private wards within NHS hospitals.

Antidepressants

Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost has been to the NHS of purchasing anti-depressants in each of the last 10 years.

David Mowat: The cost to the National Health Service of antidepressant drugs1 prescribed and dispensed to patients in England is shown in the table. YearPrimary care net ingredient cost2 £kSecondary care cost3 £kTotal cost £k2005338,546.716,907.9355,454.62006291,511.414,112.4305,623.82007276,107.612,496.8288,604.42008247,355.111,360.6258,715.72009230,062.99,816.0239,878.82010220,372.88,223.5228,596.32011270,177.27,819.4277,996.62012211,145.47,453.6218,599.02013282,121.68,708.9290,830.52014265,003.78,901.4273,905.12015284,745.69,232.8293,978.4Source: Prescription Cost Analysis and Hospital Pharmacy Audit Index © IMS HEALTH 2016 provided by NHS Digital1 For primary care, antidepressant drugs are defined as those listed in the British National Formulary (BNF) section 4.3 using the classification prior to edition 70. For secondary care, data on all drugs listed in BNF section 4.3 have been extracted from the Hospital Pharmacy Audit Index.2 Net ingredient cost is the basic cost of a drug. It does not take account of discounts, dispensing costs, fees or prescription charge income.3 The cost of the medicines at NHS list price and not necessarily the price the hospital paid. May include drugs dispensed via hospital pharmacies to private patients in private wards within NHS hospitals.

Hospital Beds

Teresa Pearce: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for how many transfers of care was the time taken for their delivery extended awaiting provision of social care in each year since 2010.

David Mowat: The information is not available in the format requested. NHS England publishes a snapshot of the number of patients ready for transfer but still occupying a hospital bed on the last Thursday of each month, and the total number of delayed days during the month for all patients delayed throughout the month. The data show the reasons for these delays and how many delays were attributable to local authority provided social care. A time series of the data from August 2010 is available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/delayed-transfers-of-care/2016-17-data/ and is summarised in the following table. Delayed transfers of care attributable to local authority provided social care, 2011-12 to 2016-17Financial yearNumber of delayed days during the reporting periodNumber of patients with a delayed transfer of care at midnight on the last Thursday of each month2011-12422,60414,9752012-13385,13113,2792013-14365,06112,7832014-15421,43414,9102015-16565,02819,8752016-17 year to September358,32412,564

Physician Associates

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many physician associates worked in general practice in the latest period for which figures are available.

Mr Philip Dunne: NHS Digital publishes data on general practice staff by type: headcount and full-time equivalent. The latest publication with data for March 2016 was published in September 2016 and includes data on physician associates: http://content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB21772/nhs-staff-Sept-2015-March-2016-gene-prac-tab.xlsx These statistics are classified as experimental as they are new official statistics that are undergoing evaluation. This is in keeping with the United Kingdom’s Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Pharmacy

Nigel Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward a community pharmacy (a) campaign and (b) audit on unwanted medicines.

Nigel Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy service to help reduce waste in care homes.

Nigel Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy generic substitution service.

Nigel Adams: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward proposals for a community pharmacy not-dispensed scheme.

David Mowat: The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) put forward a range of service development and counter proposals during the course of the consultation with them on community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. These proposals were all given full consideration by the Department. The final package contained two of the PSNC’s counter proposals – the proposal to introduce a quality payment, and the proposal for an urgent supply of medicines scheme. The independent review being conducted by Richard Murray, of the King’s Fund, will consider what clinical services should be provided by community pharmacy in the future, and how they should be commissioned. The Pharmacy Integration Fund will be used to commission and evaluate activities that bring about clinical pharmacy integration within the National Health Service demonstrating improvements in health outcomes for patients and the public in primary care and in the community.

Breast Cancer: Health Services

Craig Tracey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the finding in the Report by Breast Cancer Care, Secondary not second rate, published in July 2016, that 21 per cent of secondary breast cancer patients are treated for another condition by their GP before eventually being diagnosed, what plans his Department has to ensure that GPs are supported to spot suspected cases of metastatic breast cancer and refer them on (a) appropriately and (b) in a timely way.

David Mowat: In June 2015, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published updated guidance for suspected cancer. The guidance ‘Suspected cancer: recognition and referral’ uses a new approach which focuses on the symptoms that a patient might have to make its recommendations easier for general practitioners (GPs) to use. Some of these symptoms will be those of advanced disease but it is not always possible to specify or exclude metastatic disease at this level of granularity.More generally, Wave 2 of the Accelerate, Coordinate, Evaluate programme led by NHS England is under way, testing a new, multi-disciplinary diagnostic centre approach to diagnosing patients. The model is focussed on patients with vague or unclear but concerning symptoms, to ensure they receive a diagnosis as quickly as possible. If successful, multi-disciplinary diagnostic centres will enable patients to receive a suite of tests following referral from their GP, avoiding a situation where patients go between primary and secondary care and multiple specialisms several times before receiving a diagnosis.A new Diagnostic Capacity Fund has been rolled out to support initiatives to build the capacity and capability of diagnostic services across the country. The fund will focus on redesigning and streamlining patient pathways, to ensure that patients receive the right tests at the right time, as efficiently as possible.NHS England is also implementing stratified follow-up pathways for breast cancer to ensure that patients receive information about their treatment, the risk of and the symptoms of spread, recurrence and/or development of another primary cancer and have access to a re-entry pathway if they notice any signs or symptoms of recurrence or spread.

Prescription Drugs

Royston Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the amount of unused prescribed medication in (a) hospitals and (b) care homes.

David Mowat: Through its medicines optimisation programme, NHS England is working together with the Department, patients, the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS Business Services Authority to ensure patients get the best outcomes from their medicines, waste is reduced and taxpayers get the best value from the use of medicines in the National Health Service. In June 2015, NHS England published ‘Pharmaceutical waste reduction in the NHS’, which highlights best practice from local initiatives with the purpose of encouraging others to introduce similar initiatives where appropriate. From April 2017, pharmacy professionals will begin to be deployed in care homes through NHS England’s Pharmacy Integration Fund with funding provided for workforce development, including a prescribing qualification for pharmacists who work in care homes.

Prescription Drugs: Expenditure

Royston Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of expenditure on prescribed medication which is then unused in each of the last five years.

David Mowat: Information is not collected centrally on the annual cost or amount of dispensed but unused prescription medicines in the National Health Service. Research commissioned by the Department to determine the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines in England and published in November 2010 found that the gross cost of unused prescription medicines in primary and community care in the NHS in England in 2009 was £300 million a year and that up to £150 million of this was avoidable. It also found that the NHS was managing the problem of medicines wastage more robustly than ever before, wastage of medicines was not a systemic problem in the NHS and was no worse than other comparable countries.

Surgery

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many elective operations were cancelled in each of the last five years.

Mr Philip Dunne: The number of cancelled operations remains low in the context of the millions of operations performed in the National Health Service each year. Cancelled elective operations in Quarter 1 2016/17 as a percentage of elective admissions were 0.9%. However, hospitals should continue to do everything they can to keep last minute cancellations of operations to an absolute minimum. NHS England publishes information each quarter on the number of last minute elective operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons. The following table shows this information for the last five years plus the first two quarters of 2016/17. A last minute cancellation is defined as when a patient’s operation is cancelled by the hospital on or after the day of admission, including the day of surgery, for non-clinical reasons. Number of elective operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons in each of the last five years, 2011/12 to 2015/16 and Quarters 1 and 2 2016/17 YearQuarterNumber of cancelled elective operations2011/12112,780 212,892 314,696 416,7192012/13114,113 213,155 316,281 419,9682013/14115,443 215,032 315,852 417,8682014/15115,650 215,898 319,470 420,4642015/16116,099 216,414 318,393 423,3522016/17118,730 219,399

Hip Replacements

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hip replacement operations were performed in NHS hospitals in each of the last five years.

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many knee replacement operations were performed in NHS hospitals in each of the last five years.

Mr Philip Dunne: The information requested is available from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), which give a detailed breakdown of individual episodes of care by procedure, including hip and knee replacements. Finished Consultant Episodes1 (FCEs) with a Main2 or Secondary3 procedure where a hip replacement4 or knee replacement5 has taken place in a National Health Service hospital6, 2011-12 to 2015-167. 2011-122012-132013-142014-152015-16Hip FCEs91,06791,07393,91594,30592,380Knee FCEs67,75166,29666,88268,93666,974Source: HES, NHS Digital Notes:A FCE is a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which they end. Figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year.The first recorded procedure or intervention in each episode, usually the most resource intensive procedure or intervention performed during the episode. It is appropriate to use main procedure when looking at admission details, (e.g. time waited), but a more complete count of episodes with a particular procedure is obtained by looking at the main and the secondary procedures.As well as the main procedure, there are up to 23 secondary procedure fields in HES that show secondary procedures performed on the patient during the episode of care.The following OPCS 4 codes were used to identify hip replacements: W37-W39, W46-W48 and W93-W95.The following OPCS 4 codes were used to identify knee replacements: W40-W42, W52-W54, W58, O18, Z66, 77, and 84.The data only includes NHS hospitals and does not include private patients treated in NHS hospitals, patients who were resident outside of England and care delivered by treatment centres (including those in the independent sector) funded by the NHS.2015-16 data is provisional.

Diabetes: Diagnosis

Jonathan Ashworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were diagnosed with type two diabetes in each of the last five years.

Nicola Blackwood: The table below gives the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes from 2010-11 to 2014-15, the last year for which figures are available, as recorded by the National Diabetes Audit (NDA). Audit year2010-112011-122012-132013-142014-15People newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes217,692225,406187,404159,306153,200 It should be noted that general practice participation levels in the NDA are variable so these cannot be taken as definitive figures. It is important that diabetes statistics are accurate and up to date and both the Department and NHS England are seeking to improve rates of general practitioner (GP) participation in the audit by taking actions such as making it easier for GPs to participate.The table below shows the coverage of the NDA in each of the audit years based on the number of participating general practices. 2010-112011-122012-132013-142014-15National Diabetes Audit Coverage80.90%87.90%70.70%57.10%57.30%

NHS Property Services

Karin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made by NHS Property Services in moving to market rental charging for the freehold and long leasehold estate.

Karin Smyth: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many occupations managed by NHS Property Services are currently in dispute over rent or service charges billed to those in occupation; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne: NHS Property Services (NHSPS) was set up from the estates of primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities upon their abolition with effect from 1 April 2013. These organisations operated a variety of charging mechanisms for the properties that they held, in some cases recovering market rents from occupiers and in other cases recovering just the direct revenue costs of provision or indeed less than that in some instances. In addition records of the PCTs charging arrangements were not always reliably passed on to NHSPS, creating uncertainty as to some of the local charging principles. In the interests of transparency and consistency and to incentivise efficient holding of property, NHSPS is charging market rents on all of its properties with effect from the beginning of 2016-17, such that all of its occupiers will be charged on a consistent basis. All of NHSPS’ freehold and long leasehold property has been assessed by professional valuers and a market-based rental valuation has been made. This value has been reflected in all bills from 1 April 2016. The changes have been aggregated and funding for the overall increase in rents and charges has been provided to NHS England, and NHS England has written recently to all clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) setting out the funding that will be available to them to fund increases to market rent in buildings from which they commission services. CCGs are now working with NHSPS and NHS England to finalise allocations to fund the change in rental charges as quickly as possible. The move to market rents is a significant change for the 3,500 properties the NHSPS manages. As can be expected, the change has generated a high volume of queries from tenants. The Department is working with NHSPS to resolve approximately 20 complex billing related disputes.

Lutetium Therapy

Jeremy Lefroy: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to review the decision to remove Lutetium-177 octreotate therapy treatments from the Cancer Drugs Fund list.

Nicola Blackwood: I refer the hon. Member to the Answer given by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman) on 12 July 2016 to Question 41736.

Mental Health Services: Finance

Amanda Solloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of maintaining increases in mental health funding or funding for other NHS services; and if he will make a statement.

Nicola Blackwood: The Spending Review in November 2015 settled the level of funding that the National Health Service in England will receive over the course of this Parliament. The NHS will be receiving £10 billion more per year in real terms by 2020-21 compared to 2014-15. This increase in funding enables increases in both mental health funding and other key priorities. It supports NHS England’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View, delivering high quality care seven days a week.This also supports the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in February 2016. The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, as the report of the Mental Health Taskforce, made the case for additional investment in mental health which will in turn deliver savings to the NHS including the acute sector. The Taskforce recommended, and we have accepted, investing £1 billion more per year in mental health by 2020-21.NHS England is also monitoring investment in mental health as commissioners are required to increase their mental health spending in line with the growth in their overall programme allocation.

Suicide

Mrs Madeleine Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans to publish the third annual report on Preventing Suicide in England: a cross-government outcomes strategy to save lives; and if he will make a statement.

Nicola Blackwood: We expect to publish the third annual progress report of the cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy in due course.

Royal Brompton Hospital

Andy Slaughter: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations his Department has received on the quality of congenital heart disease services at the Royal Brampton Hospital.

Andy Slaughter: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what detailed analysis have been undertaken into current and projected congenital heart disease  patient flows in (a) London and (b) the South East and East of England and into the capacity of units in London to meet those flows.

Mr Philip Dunne: NHS England has undertaken an analysis of current patient flows and how these might be affected if it was minded to take action to ensure providers comply with the new national commissioning standards for congenital heart disease services for children and adults. The analysis has been shared with all the providers concerned for their comments, to provide assurance of their ability to accept additional patients if required to do so and to ensure that capacity would be available to provide care for patients in the future. The Department has received a number of pieces of correspondence in recent weeks about congenital heart disease services at the Royal Brompton Hospital.

Public Health England: Staff

Stuart C. McDonald: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to item 7 of the substantive hearing of the Conduct and Competence Committee at the Nursing and Midwifery Council of 13 and 14 September 2016 on Pauline Cafferkey that found that the evidence indicates that PHE Screening staff were not properly prepared to receive so many travellers from at risk countries, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of that finding; and what steps he plans to take to ensure health screening of such travellers is adequately planned for and resourced in future.

Nicola Blackwood: Working in partnership with the Border Force, Public Health England screened 14,500 passengers returning to the United Kingdom from West Africa during the Ebola outbreak. This was the first time that port of entry screening for an infectious disease had been implemented on this scale. The design and implementation of the screening process evolved throughout the course of the outbreak with ever more accurate information being gathered from partners overseas and shared in advance with the screening teams at the five major UK ports of entry.

Meningitis: Vaccination

Mary Creagh: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the take-up rate has been for Meningococcal ACWY vaccine by each clinical commissioning group in England in each year since 2015.

Nicola Blackwood: Vaccine uptake data by clinical commissioning group (CCG) for Meningococcal ACWY (MenACWY) vaccination are only available for one of the targeted groups for vaccination. This is the cohort currently aged 18-19 years (born between 1 September 1997 and 31 August 1998) who are offered vaccination at general practitioners practices and have been eligible since April 2016. Cumulative MenACWY vaccine uptake data showing the position at the end August 2016 have been published by Public Health England: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/meningococcal-acwy-immunisation-programme-vaccine-coverage-estimates Vaccine uptake data for other groups offered MenACWY vaccine in schools are not available by CCG.

Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme

Crispin Blunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had on enhancing consultation with stakeholders on the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation in the preparation and conduct of the forthcoming negotiations on the next such Scheme, in particular with industry bodies representing companies directly affected through their participation in the Scheme.

Nicola Blackwood: We have not had any discussions relating to a successor to the current five-year Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, which came into effect on 1 January 2014.

Health Services and Social Services: West Sussex

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department is making on integrating health and social care in West Sussex; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat: The Better Care Fund (BCF), implemented from the beginning of 2015-16, is the first national, mandatory integration policy. Its overarching aims are to keep people living independently at home and prevent them from needing more support.In 2015-16, it was a minimum £3.8 billion nationally and local areas pooled an additional £1.5 billion, taking the total to £5.3 billion. In 2016-17, it will be increased to a mandated minimum of £3.9 billion and early analysis of BCF plans indicates that local areas have once again pooled over and above the minimum, taking the total to approaching £6 billion.The BCF has set the foundation, but we want to go further, faster, to deliver joined up care. The ways local areas integrate will be different, and some parts of the country are already demonstrating different approaches, which reflect models the government supports.West Sussex’s BCF plan outlines its vision for health and care services. The vision for 2019-20 remains a shift from reactive to proactive health and social care to enable more people to have healthier, safer and more independent lives in their own home and community for longer, receiving the right care in the right place at the right time.The latest available BCF performance report can be found on the the West Sussex Health and Wellbeing website at:http://www2.westsussex.gov.uk/ds/cttee/hwb/hwb131016i6a.pdf

Health Services: Cumbria

Mr Jamie Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent to date by the West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime.

Mr Jamie Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent to date by the West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime on consultancy services.

Mr Jamie Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent to date by the West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime on legal fees.

Mr Philip Dunne: The West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime has been established to help create the right conditions for high quality health and social care to develop in this area. Its aim is to secure improvement by introducing new care models where appropriate, developing leadership capacity and capability across the health system and ensuring collaborative working. In 2015/16 the total expenditure on the West, North and East Cumbria Success Regime was £1.2 million. Of this, £774,000 was spent on consultancy services and a further £20,000 on legal advice.

Incontinence

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether healthcare assistants will be required to undertake mandatory continence care training as part of their basic training.

Mr Philip Dunne: It is for each individual trust to decide the exact content of its initial healthcare assistant training. As of 1 April 2015, all new healthcare assistants and social care support workers are expected to attain the new Care Certificate within their first 12 weeks of employment, where each new worker must demonstrate to their employer that they meet all 15 standards of fundamental skills and knowledge. Whilst there is no specific mention in the Care Certificate standards, the Care Certificate can provide the foundations for continence care training. For example, standard 5 of the Care Certificate concerns working in a person-centred way. In meeting this standard, each worker must show that they understand how to take appropriate action where there is pain or discomfort. This includes ensuring equipment or medical devices are working properly or in the correct position e.g. catheter tubes. They must also remove or minimise any environmental factors causing pain or discomfort including wet or soiled clothing or bed linen. Other relevant standards cover “Privacy and Dignity”, “Fluids and Nutrition” and “Infection Prevention and Control”.

Orkambi

Helen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what evidence was considered before the decision not to make Kalydeco available to children under two with cystic fibrosis; and whether there are plans to reconsider this decision.

David Mowat: NHS England is not able to consider making ivacaftor (Kalydeco) available to children under two with cystic fibrosis as it is not licensed for that age group.

Obesity

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the NHS of health issues related to obesity in each of the next five years.

Nicola Blackwood: ‘The economic burden of ill health due to diet, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol and obesity in the UK: an update to 2006-07 NHS costs’ estimated that overweight and obesity-related ill heath cost the National Health Service in the United Kingdom £5.1 billion per year. This figure was uplifted to £6.1 billion in 2014-15 to take account of inflation. No further estimates have been made centrally. ‘The economic burden of ill health due to diet, physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol and obesity in the UK: an update to 2006-07 NHS costs’ is available at: http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/11/pubmed.fdr033.full.pdf+html

NHS: Sustainable Development

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 31 October 2016 to Question 51067, which Sustainability and Transformation Plan leads are being paid over and above the remuneration they receive for their existing role; and what the level of that remuneration was in each such case.

David Mowat: Only one individual is being paid as a full time Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) lead. However, this individual remains an National Health Service employee and is not being paid anything over and above her existing remuneration. Two other individuals are being paid primarily as independent chairs of the Success Regimes in Mid and South Essex and in Devon. In addition, they are acting as STP leads. NHS England does not hold information on their remuneration, as this is a local matter.

Capita

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2016 to Question 50489, on Capita: standards, what additional measures and resources are now employed to restore those essential services.

David Mowat: Capita has provided NHS England with rectification plans to recover the most important Primary Care Support services. These include:- Improving the process for patients to register with general practitioners (GPs) with improved information technology and additional staff;- Improving the management of Capita’s customer support centre through increasing the number of staff and improving their training;- Working with NHS England to fast-track the consideration of applications to the GP National Performers’ List whilst recruiting additional staff, improving training and providing better tools to track and process applications;- Adding more expert staff to payment services to ensure that backlogs are cleared, especially for GPs and ophthalmologists; and- Improving access to medical records and clearing the backlog of urgent requests with a re-designed process (currently being piloted in West Yorkshire ahead of national roll-out) and additional drivers, vehicles and routes to ensure an improved courier service.These improvements and additional resources have been provided by Capita at their expense and my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Nicola Blackwood), will continue to work directly with Capita and NHS England to ensure that services are restored to an acceptable and sustainable standard.

East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Vernon Coaker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the trends in the level of performance figures for the East Midlands Ambulance Service; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne: NHS England publishes the number of Category A Red One and Red Two calls responded to within eight minutes and the number of ambulances arriving at the scene within 19 minutes for a Category A call. The data are available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/NHS England is exploring whether changes to the way that the ambulance service responds to calls could help improve patient outcomes and help services better manage demand. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.

Health Services: Care Homes

Vernon Coaker: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has for a national rollout of the enhanced health in care homes vanguard scheme; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat: By 2020, it is envisaged that more than 50% of the country will be covered by the new care models, one of which is the enhanced health in care homes (EHCH) model. The new care models programme has recently published the enhanced health in care homes framework, which sets out both the emerging care model, and the best practice, that others can implement to significantly improve the outcomes of service users. The Five Year Forward View partners will work with providers and commissioners in a number of ways to help spread elements of the EHCH care model as effectively as possible. The partners are already spreading this model through supporting its adoption in existing vanguards, as well as through the 2016/17 planning process, Sustainability and Transformation Plans, and through trade associations and providers.

NHS Improvement: Pay

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2016 to Question 50699, on NHS Improvement, how many employees in that Directorate are expected to earn more than £100,000.

Mr Philip Dunne: When fully staffed, it is planned that six of NHS Improvement’s operational productivity directorate’s 140 staff will earn over £100,000. Consideration is being given to the need to base a further four senior staff (also likely to earn over £100,000) in NHS Improvement’s regional teams.

Dementia: North West

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people there are diagnosed with dementia in (a) Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency, (b) Cumbria and (c) the North West.

David Mowat: Information is not available in the format requested. Data are available from the ‘Patients in England with a record of dementia diagnosis on their clinical record, October 2016’ dataset. The data are a snapshot as at 31 October 2016. Data are collected at general practitioner (GP) practice level, and therefore mapping to relatively small geographies (such as parliamentary constituencies) would not yield representative figures. The data can be aggregated to clinical commissioning group (CCG) level, and to a group of CCGs considered to comprise the North West. This can be found in the table below. Table 1: Number of patients registered at GP practices, and the number of patients with a recorded dementia diagnosis, as at 31 October 2016GeographyPatients with recorded dementia diagnosisPatient list sizeNHS Cumbria CCG5,219522,500North West¹62,1387,516,621Source: NHS DigitalSee table 2 for list of CCGs included in North West totals. Table 2: CCGs included in North West totalNHS Cumbria CCGNHS Liverpool CCGNHS Blackburn with Darwen CCGNHS South Sefton CCGNHS Blackpool CCGNHS Southport and Formby CCGNHS Chorley and South Ribble CCGNHS St Helens CCGNHS East Lancashire CCGNHS Bolton CCGNHS Fylde and Wyre CCGNHS Bury CCGNHS Greater Preston CCGNHS Central Manchester CCGNHS Lancashire North CCGNHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale CCGNHS West Lancashire CCGNHS North Manchester CCGNHS Eastern Cheshire CCGNHS Oldham CCGNHS South Cheshire CCGNHS Salford CCGNHS Vale Royal CCGNHS South Manchester CCGNHS Warrington CCGNHS Stockport CCGNHS West Cheshire CCGNHS Tameside and Glossop CCGNHS Wirral CCGNHS Trafford CCGNHS Halton CCGNHS Wigan Borough CCGNHS Knowsley CCG We also launched the Dementia Atlas in August 2016: https://shapeatlas.net/dementia/ This interactive on-line resource aims to provide members of the public information on how their area performs against a range of areas along the Dementia “Well Pathway”. This greater transparency will enable people to know how health and care services are performing and highlight variation and areas where improvements are needed.

Medical Treatments

Norman Lamb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on how many occasions in each of the last five years the NHS (a) requested and (b) was granted exemption from its legal requirement to fund drugs and treatments within three months of technology appraisal guidance issued by NICE; and for which drugs and treatments each of those exemptions was sought; what the reasons were for each such request; what the outcome was of each such request; and what the new timescale for the funding requirement was on each occasion where the request was granted.

Nicola Blackwood: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has advised that there have been two occasions since 2013 on which NHS England has requested an extension to the three month timescale for the funding requirement, and there has been one occasion since 2013 in which an extension to the three month timescale for the funding requirement has been agreed. The two requests for an extension relate to sofosbuvir for treating chronic hepatitis C (TA330) and simeprevir in combination with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin for treating genotypes 1 and 4 chronic hepatitis C (TA331). NHS England requested an extension to the implementation period for sofosbuvir to allow them time to put the staff and resources in place to plan and deliver the hepatitis C service, including the provision of a national database and dashboard to monitor and support individual care. The request was granted following a further public consultation on changes to the timescale for the funding requirement. The implementation period was extended to 31 July 2015 (an additional two months over the usual time for implementation as the guidance was published in February 2015). NHS England also sought an extension to the implementation period for simeprevir in order to be consistent with the requested extension for sofosbuvir. This was on the basis that further therapies for hepatitis C would become available in the foreseeable future, and the NHS would wish to see their comparative cost effectiveness assessed before selecting one particular option for hundreds of millions of pounds of new public investment. The request for an extension to the implementation period for simeprevir was subsequently withdrawn by NHS England following the development of an interim policy document for the use of this technology, for introduction in early 2015. Prior to April 2013, different mechanisms were in place for the funding requirement, and there were no requests for extensions to the period within which funding must be made available for NICE recommended drugs between 2011 and 2013.

NHS: Finance

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve financial control in the NHS.

Mr Philip Dunne: There are clear plans in place for responding to the challenges faced by the National Health Service and to improve financial control, these include:- Introducing a £1.8 billion Sustainability and Transformation Fund this year to support providers to move to a financially sustainable footing;- Restoring financial discipline in the short term, beginning with the NHS England and NHS Improvement publication of ‘Strengthening Financial Performance & Accountability in 2016-17’, which sets out a wide-ranging, seven-point set of actions;- Reducing demand for acute care in the longer term as set out in the Five Year Forward View; and- Promoting efficiency and productivity in the provider sector - building on the work of Lord Carter, which has identified large variations in efficiency across non-specialist English acute hospitals, and controlling cost pressures.

NHS: Managers

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve leadership training at higher levels of management in the NHS.

Mr Philip Dunne: The NHS Leadership Academy aims to develop outstanding leadership at all levels and in all disciplines across the National Health Service. In April 2016 the Academy became part of Health Education England and it is now developing a new approach which will support the development of senior, but also mid-level leaders, across the system. This new approach will ensure consistency and quality in leadership development for aspiring directors and above, supported by effective talent management which will support local health economies to develop their own inclusive and representative talent management processes and communities of practice. The NHS Leadership Academy will also continue to design and deliver high quality programmes that support the identification and development of those aspiring to director-level roles and at every level.

Incontinence

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether continence care training has become a mandatory part of the curriculum for nurses since publication of the Francis Report.

Mr Philip Dunne: The Department is not aware that continence care training has become a mandatory part of the nurse training curriculum post Sir Robert Francis’s Public Inquiry report into the failings at Mid Staffs. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) sets the standards of education, training, conduct and performance for nurses in the United Kingdom. The NMC has committed to delivering a programme of change for education between 2016 and 2020 to modernise education standards and ensure that nurses and midwives are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to practise now and in the future. Effective from 31 March 2015 the Code for Nurses and Midwives presents the professional standards that nurses and midwives must uphold in order to be registered to practise in the UK: https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/ For all health professionals, NHS England’s Excellence in Continence Care guidance, published in November 2015, provides a framework that enables commissioners to work in collaboration with providers and others to make a step change to address shortfalls so that safe, dignified, efficient and effective continence care is consistently provided. This guidance is aimed at commissioners, providers, health and social care staff and also provides information for the public. The guidance was produced in partnership with patient and public advocates, clinicians and partners from the third sector. A copy of the guidance can be found at the following link: www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2015/11/EICC-guidance-final-document.pdf

NHS: Sustainable Development

Sue Hayman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health of 14 September 2016, Official Report, column 998, if he will deposit a document in the Library describing how stakeholders will be consulted as part of the NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans.

David Mowat: Guidance on consultation as part of the National Health Service Sustainability and Transformation Plans, entitled ‘Engaging local people’ was published on the 15 September 2016. A copy has been placed in the Library and is also available at the following address: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/engag-local-people-stps.pdf



PQ53468 engag-local-people-stps
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Community Hospitals: Dorset

Mr Christopher Chope: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant the Answer of 14 November 2016 to Question 52427, where the 357 hospital beds in Dorset are located; and what the proposed locations are of the additional 69 community beds in the east of the county.

David Mowat: Further to my reply given to Question 52427, NHS England advises that the correct figure for the number of community beds in Dorset is 347, of which 286 are community hospital beds. This corrects the answer I gave on 14 November 2016. NHS England advises community hospital beds are located in the following areas: - 137 beds in East Dorset; Poole Bay; Poole Central; Poole North; and Purbeck;- 44 beds in Bournemouth North; Central Bournemouth; Christchurch; and East Bournemouth; and- 166 beds in Dorset West; Mid Dorset; North Dorset; and Weymouth and Portland. NHS England further advises that the additional 69 community beds are proposed to be located in the following hospitals: - Bridport Community Hospital;- Weymouth Community Hospital;- Blandford Community Hospital;- Swanage Community Hospital;- Wimborne Community Hospital; and- Yeatman Hospital. Dependent upon the outcome of a public consultation, which NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) expects to run in due course, beds will also be located at Poole, Royal Bournemouth or Christchurch hospitals. Of the 69 additional beds, extra care home beds will be required in four main areas to take account of proposals to consolidate community hospital bed on fewer sites; as well as meeting the needs of people in Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole. These areas are Wareham, Shaftesbury and Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch. Until the consultation is concluded the CCG is not able to develop the definitive sites for these beds.

NHS: Reorganisation

Mr Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has made a recent estimate of the cumulative cost of NHS reorganisation arising from the Health and Social Care Act 2014; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat: There were no reorganisation costs to the National Health Service arising from the Care Act 2014.The costs associated with the Act were set out in the Final Impact Assessment. This is available at:http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/resources

Care Homes: Inspections

Rosie Cooper: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the role of the Care Quality Commission is in respect of carrying out inspections of the standards of continence care in nursing homes.

Mr Philip Dunne: The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England. All providers of regulated activities, including National Health Service and independent providers, have to register with the CQC and follow a set of fundamental standards of safety and quality below which care should never fall. The CQC assess providers against fundamental standards. The CQC has advised that the lack of adequate continence care could breach a number of the CQC fundamental standards; for example that people:- must have care and treatment that is tailored to them and meets their needs and preferences;- are treated with dignity and respect at all times whilst receiving care and treatment; and- do not suffer any form of abuse or improper treatment, including neglect or degrading treatment, while receiving care.The CQC considers continence as part of inspections wherever appropriate. If a specific concern over continence care was raised, the inspection would focus on this issue in greater detail.

Mental Health Services: Children

Luciana Berger: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many psychiatrists have been employed nationally to work in child and adolescent mental health services in each year since 2010.

Nicola Blackwood: NHS Digital publishes monthly data on the number of Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) doctors employed in the National Health Service in England by specialty group and by specialty, but not by type of services. The number of child and adolescent psychiatrists, within the specialty group of psychiatry in each year from July 2010 and July 2016, which is the latest available data, is available at the following link: http://content.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB22088/nhs-work-stat-july-2016-doc-spec-levl.xlsx NHS Digital will be publishing data for August 2016 on 23 November 2016.

Mental Health Services

Luciana Berger: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of people on the Care Programme Approach received follow-up within seven days of being discharged from mental health inpatient services in each year since 2010.

Nicola Blackwood: Data on the proportion of patients on the Care Programme Approach that were followed up within seven days of discharge from psychiatric inpatient services are collected as part of the Quarterly Mental Health Community Teams Activity return. Data are shown at provider organisation level and commissioner organisation level and are available back to 2010/11. These data are available via this link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/mental-health-community-teams-activity/

Mental Health Services

Luciana Berger: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his oral contribution of 15 November 2016, what his evidential basis is for his statement on the number of people currently being treated by mental health services relative to the number in 2010.

Nicola Blackwood: Pursuant to my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health’s oral contribution of 15 November 2016 (HC Orals Topical Questions Vol 617 c121), the number of people in contact with National Health Service funded secondary mental health services and learning disability services is reported in the Mental Health Services Dataset, which is managed and published by NHS Digital. Annual reports show that the number of people in contact with NHS providers went from 1,285,594 in 2010/11 to 1,812,549 in 2014/15 (the latest annual data published). This is a difference of 526,955, which divided by 365 days in one year gives an average of around 1,400 extra people per day in contact with services in 2014/15 in relation to 2010/11.

Meningitis: Vaccination

Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to increase the take-up of the meningitis ACWY vaccine; and if he will make a statement.

Nicola Blackwood: Public Health England (PHE) continues to actively promote the MenACWY vaccination programme. Actions being taken to improve the uptake of the vaccine include the following: - Providing extensive guidance and support to the National Health Service on the implementation of this vaccination programme, and producing leaflets, posters and other online materials publicising this vaccination to both the public and NHS staff;- Securing extensive media coverage about the launch of the MenACWY vaccination programme in national newspapers, broadcast and online media;- Arranging interviews with PHE vaccination experts broadcast on all British Broadcasting Corporation television and radio news channels and commercial stations, with subsequent coverage in national and regional newspapers;- Establishing a targeted Facebook campaign in support of the NHS Choices University Health promotion aimed at freshers, international students and parents of students; and- Liaising with Meningitis Now and The Meningitis Research Foundation to maximise publicity at universities with Universities UK, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service and the National Union of Students.

Health Services: Essex

Sue Hayman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Success Regime in Mid and South Essex.

Sue Hayman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Success Regime in West, North and East Cumbria.

Sue Hayman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the Success Regime in North, East and West Devon.

Mr Philip Dunne: The Success Regime was launched in June 2015 and is aimed at providing challenge and support to some of the most challenged health and care economies in the country in order to improve the quality and sustainability of services offered to local people. It takes a whole systems-approach to help address long-standing, deep-rooted and systemic issues. The programme will oversee progress from diagnosis of the underlying issues through to implementation of solutions, and aims to build local leadership capacity in order to ensure that improvements made are maintained. The allocations followed a business case process and were approved by NHS England. The information requested is shown in the following table: Allocations to the Success Regimes in 2015/16 and 2016/17 Success Regime2015/162016/17Devon Success Regime£1.4 million£6.0 millionMid and South Essex Success Regime£900,000£5.7 millionWest, North and East Cumbria Success Regime£1.2 million£5.0 million